


Bruiser

by Happily



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Abuse, Bruiser!AU, F/M, Harry takes other people's pain?, Kid!Niall, Liam Payne & Louis Tomlinson Are Brothers, Liam and Louis are twins, M/M, Multi, Niall is Harry's younger brother, Not sure how to tag that, insecure!harry, shy!harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-01-08 21:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 24,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1137859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happily/pseuds/Happily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a reason why Harry can't have friends-why he can't care about too many people. Because when he cares about you, things start to happen.</p><p>AKA the AU based on the book Bruiser by Neal Shusterman, but you don't have to know anything about the book to read this fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Symbiosis

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is based on the book Bruiser by Neal Shusterman and I don't at all own this idea!! I've just been wanting a Bruiser!AU for literally forever so I thought why not write it myself?? If you haven't read this book, I highly suggest you do, it is absolutely amazing!!!

**_ Liam _ **

**__ **

            If he touches him, I’m going to rip out his guts with my bare hands and send them to his next of kin for lunch.

            What is my brother _thinking?_ This guy-this loser-has got no business breathing the same air as him, much less taking him on a date. Just because he asked doesn’t mean Louis has to accept.

            “Are you afraid that if you say no, he’ll bury you in his backyard or something?”  I ask the question over dinner, while I’m still steaming from the news.

            Louis gives me a look that says _Excuse me, but I can take care of myself,_ and he says, “Excuse me, but I can take care of myself.” He learned that look from our mother, I hate that look. I give Louis a look that says _I think not,_ and I say, “You gonna eat that piece of pizza?”

            Louis peels off the cheese, throws it on Dad’s plate, and eats the bread. He’s on a high-carb diet, which basically means he eats everything that Dad can’t on his low-carb diet. It makes them part of an evolved symbiotic relationship. That’s science. Just because I’m an athlete doesn’t mean I don’t have brains.

            Mom, God rest her soul, is still on the phone. She’s negotiating with the next-door neighbor, hoping to get him to stop mowing his lawn at seven AM on Sunday morning. I don’t know why she needs the phone; we can hear the other end of the conversation through the window. In order to get to the point, Mom has to strategically weave around the field, breaking down the neighbor’s defenses by talking gossip and being generally friendly. You know- lulling the guy into a false sense of security before going in for the kill. It’s such an all-important conversation that Mom had to order a pizza rather than cook. She also had to order it online, since she was already on the phone.

            Mom doesn’t cook anymore. She does nothing much motherly or wifely anymore since Dad did some unmentionables during his midlife crisis. Louis and I have become convinced that Mom, God rest her soul, kind of died inside and hasn’t come back from the dead yet. We keep waiting, but all we get is Domino’s.

            “I’m eighteen,” Louis says. “I can spend time with whoever I want.”

            “As your older brother, it’s my sacred duty to save you from yourself.”

            He brings his fists down on the table, making all the dinner plates jump. “The ONLY reason you’re fifteen minutes older than me is because you cut in front of the line, as usual!”

            I turn to our father, searching for an ally. “So Dad, is it legal for Louis to date out of his species?”

            Dad looks up from his various layers of pepperoni and beadles cheese. “Date?” he says. Apparently the idea of Louis dating is like an electromagnet sucking away all other words in the sentence, so that’s the only word he hears.

            “You’re not funny,” Louis says to me.

            “No, I’m serious,” I tell him. “Isn’t he like… a Sasquatch or something?

            “Date?” says Dad.

            “Just because he’s tall,” Louis points out, “that doesn’t mean he’s apelike; and anyway, _you’re_ the lowest primate in our zip code, Liam.”

            “Admit it-this guy is one more stray dog for you!”

            Louis growls at me, like one of the near-rabid creatures he used to bring home on a regular basis. Our house used to be a revolving doggy door, until Mom and Dad put their feet down and we became fish people.

            “Is this a boy we know?” Dad asks.

            Louis sighs and gnaws his cheeseless pizza in frustration.

            “His name is Harry Styles, and he is nothing like what people say about him.”

            This is not the way to introduce your father to a prospective boyfriend, and I figure maybe Dad might be terrified enough to forbid Louis to date him.

            “Exactly what do people say about him?” Dad asks. Dad always starts sentences with the word _exactly_ when he suspects he doesn’t want to hear the answer. I snicker, knowing that Louis is stuck; and he punches me on the shoulder.

            _What do they say about the Bruiser?_ I think. _What don’t they say?_ “Let’s see… in eighth grade he was voted Most Likely to Receive the Death Penalty.”

            “He’s _quiet,_ ” says Louis. “He’s _inscrutable,_ but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad person. You know what they say:Still waters run deep-”

            “-and are full of missing persons.”

            Louis hits me on the shoulder again. “Next time,” he says, “I’ll use your lacrosse stick.”

            “Inscrutable…,” Dad says, mulling over the word.

            “It means ‘hard to understand,’” shouts Mom from across the room as if he didn’t know. Mom never passes up a good opportunity to make Dad look stupid.

            “Your mother,” grumbles Dad, “knows full well that _inscrutable_ was one of _my_ words.”

            “Nope,” says Mom, “it was one of mine.”

            They’re referring to the vocabulary curse Louis and I have been under since kindergarten. Mom and Dad alternate in force-feeding us one power word every day, which we are expected to swallow without vomiting. That’s what you get when both of your parents are professors of literature.

            “The Bruiser comes from a screwed-up family,” I tell Dad. “They’re a bunch of nut jobs.”

            “Oh,” says Louis, “and we’re not dysfunctional?”

            “Only your father,” says Mom. “But apparently he’s taken care of it.”

            Mom could have been a great sniper if she had chosen that line of work. Every time she gets off a nice one, it gives me hope that her soul might be reviving.

            As for the Bruiser, he has no mother. No father either. No one knows what the deal is there. All people know is that he lives with his uncle and an eight-year-old brother who looks like he’s been raised by wolves. And this is the family Louis wants to date into. My brother obviously was never visited by the common sense fairy.

            “Exactly when were you planning to see this boy?” Dad asks.

            “He’s taking me miniature golfing on Saturday afternoon.”

            “Real high-class,” I say.

            “You shut up!”           

             And I do, because now I know everything I need to know about his so-called date. 


	2. Consolation

Liam

I take my girlfriend, Danielle, to play miniature golf Saturday afternoon. Is it coincidence, or is it design? You tell me.  
“Must we?” she asks when I suggest it.   
“We must,” I answer, and offer no further explanation. Her hatred of miniature golf, I think, is born of the fact that her father golfed away her entire childhood instead of spending it at home. I suppose Wackworld Miniature Golf Emporium is a reminder of those dark times.  
“It’s a happy place,” I tell her. “You can’t hate Wackworld; it’s like hating Disneyland.”  
“I hate Disneyland,” she says, although she won’t tell me why. Actually, I’m afraid to find out.  
“Okay, I’ll go,” she tells me, “as long as we don’t keep score.” And since my motives have nothing to do with golfing competition, I agree.  
“You’re paying, right?” Danielle asks. “Because I will not pay money to hit a ball with a stick.”  
I tell her that I’ll pay, but she really didn’t need to ask because I always pay. Danielle’s very old-school when it comes to dating. The guy always pays, and holds doors for her, and pulls out chairs. I actually kind of like it; it’s cool pretending to be a gentleman.   
Danielle and I had begun as what you might call a consolation couple. In other words, she really wanted to go out with my friend Andy Beaumont, and I really wanted to go out with her friend Stacy VerMoot. But Andy and Stacy found each other, and have since become surgically attached at the hip. That left Danielle and me as each other’s consolation prize. As I had just dislocated my shoulder and Danielle wants to be a nurse, it all just popped into place.   
“Life,” my father had once said, “is all about settling.” Unfortunately, he’d said that right in front of Mom, who proceeded to serve him a peanut butter and onion sandwich for dinner that night.   
“Life is all about settling,” she reminded him as she slipped the plate in front of him. His response had been to eat the whole horrific sandwich out of spite, then catch her unawares with a big, slobbery, peanut butter and onion kiss. After that they didn’t speak to each other for about a day and a half. I swear, parents can be such children.   
I meet Danielle at her house, and we walk to Wackworld, since buses in our corner of suburbia don’t go anywhere but to some place called the Transportation Center, where you can catch a dozen other buses that don’t go anywhere. Since I don’t have my license yet, my only choices are bike, parental taxi, or my own two feet. Danielle always prefers walking, because it provides us with an opportunity to talk. Actually, it provides her with an opportunity to talk and me the opportunity to listen. The only time those roles are reversed is after a lacrosse game, when you can’t shut me up.   
“…so for the entirety of math class,” Danielle continues, “Miss Markel has one of her false eyelashes dangling half on, half off her left eye, like a caterpillar; and the whole class is watching and waiting for the thing to drop…”  
I don’t mind her stories anymore. When we first started going out, I would zone out when she got into it; but as time went on, I got used to it and actually found that I enjoyed listening.  
“…I don’t know why she wears false lashes; I guess it must be a generational thing, like the way some women pluck out their eyebrows, then paint on fake ones, or like foot binding in India-”  
“China.”  
“Right, and I think she wears a wig, too. So anyway, she finally turns her head real fast and off the eyelash flies, and where does it land? Right on the head of Ozzy O’Dell-who had just shaved all his body hair for swimming, including head; and since the thing still has a little glue, it sticks there on top of his scalp, like a teeny-tiny Mohawk, and he doesn’t even know…”  
The thing about Danielle is that her voice is kind of hypnotic, like a spiritual chant in some foreign language.  
“…so tell me, how was I supposed to focus on a math quiz with Mini-Mohawk Ozzy sitting in front of me, the thing flapping in the breeze from the open window?”  
“Did Markel ever notice it?”  
“Yeah, like five minutes before the end of class she saw it, quietly plucked it from his head, and then slipped it into her desk drawer, thinking no one saw, even though everyone did-but by then it was too late to get my quiz done, so the whole thing was a crash and burn of epic proportions, and all because of a stupid fake eyelash.”  
Danielle’s life is very dramatic. Maybe my brother thinks that by going out with the Bruiser she’ll have drama too; but I know guys better than he knows guys, and knowing that guy, I think he’s in for something more in the horror genre.


	3. Coercion

Liam 

The entrance to Wackworld Miniature Golf Emporium is marked with a massive sign all done in bright red letters on a very serious black background. The sign warns of all the activities that are not allowed. Every few months a new item gets added as visitors come up with amazing new activities to threaten life, limb, and property. Any time I go there, I make a point of reading the sign to find out what new things have been added. Here are my personal favorites:  
Do not fill the fountain with alcohol, gasoline, or other flammable substances!  
Attaching children to the arms of the windmill by means of staple gun or other such devices is strictly prohibited!  
Toads, turtles, and other small animals may not be substituted for golf balls!  
Please do not paint genitalia on the mermaids!  
I am proud to say that I was responsible for the addition of that last one a few years back.  
As we enter through the gate, I scan the rolling hills of concrete and artificial turf until finding Louis and the Bruiser. They’re on hole three but have moved on to hole four by the time Danielle negotiates herself an acceptable club and demands a red ball from the ball shack geek.  
“Why red?” I ask.  
“Easier to spot,” she says. “Besides, red is the new black.”  
“I thought pink was the new black.”  
“Yes, but red is the new pink.”  
I point at my shirt. “What does that say for green?”  
“It only gets worse for green.” Then she hits her ball; it smacks the windmill blade and comes flying back at us.  
“I hate windmills,” says Danielle.  
“You and Don Quixote.”  
“Who?”  
“Never mind.” I suffer the constant scourge of literary parents. Thank God I’m good at spots, or I might have been pegged early in life and beaten up in hallways. Life is cruel.  
We putt our way through the first hole. Just ahead of us, a slow-moving family allows us to play through. I get a hole in one, and that speeds us along. Now Louis and the Bruiser are only two holes ahead.  
“Hey,” says Danielle, “isn’t that your brother?”  
“Oh, yeah, I guess it is.”  
“Who’s that she’s with?”  
I just shrug and continue playing. We both make a quick par three, and we’ve closed the gap down to one hole.  
Up ahead, Louis has spotted me. I give him a grin and a little wave. He sends me back a chilly glare that could end global warming.  
“Hi, Louis,” Danielle says as we finally intercept them.  
“What a surprise!” I say.  
“Yeah,” grumbles Louis, “some surprise.”  
I look at the Bruiser-this is the first time I’ve ever been this close to him. He’s very tall. His hair is dark, curly, and neglected. You can tell he tried to comb it, but you can also tell he gave up halfway through. He looks like a vagrant in training. I hate him. I hate the concept of him. He’s a freight train of bad news barreling at my brother.  
“Hey, can we join you guys,” Danielle asks, “and make it a foursome?”  
The Bruiser shrugs like he doesn’t care; and Louis throws up her hands, giving up all hope of getting rid of me. “Sure,” he says miserably, “why not.”  
“You haven’t introduced me to your friend,” I say, all daisies and sunshine.  
Louis looks like he might become physically ill. “Harry, this is my brother, Liam. Liam, this is Harry.”  
“Hey,” says the Bruiser, shaking my hand. His eyes are an ugly pea green, and his hand is huge. After shaking, I wipe my hand on my pants. He notices. I’m glad.  
Danielle narrows her eyes at him, studying him. “I’ve got a class with you, haven’t I?” She knows the Bruiser but just doesn’t recognize him out of his natural environment.  
“English,” he says in a dead, flat voice. This guy is the king of one-word answers-probably all his brain can hold at one time. He sets for his shot. It’s almost comical; his golf club is much too small for him, as is his shirt-either he outgrew it, or it shrunk a few sizes after he got it. The overall effect is very Winnie-the-Pooh, without the pot belly or cuteness. He hits the ball too hard, it bounces off course, and it gets swallowed by a topiary hedge shaped like a walrus.  
“Tough break,” I say. “That’ll cost ya.”  
“It’s only a game,” he grumbles, then lumbers off in search of his ball. Danielle smacks her next ball and follows it to the far end of the hole, leaving me alone with Louis, who gets in my face the second Danielle is out of earshot.  
“You are going to pay for this in the worst way!” Louis snarls. “I haven’t figured out how; but when I do, you will suffer.”  
I look toward the walrus bush. “I think your date was distracted by something shiny. I’d better go help him find his ball.” I saunter off, leaving him fuming.  
He’s around the other side of the huge walrus bush, fighting pine branch flippers to get at his ball, poking the club into the shrub. I get in there right beside him, force my way deep into the branches, and snatch up his ball. I hold it out to him, and he reaches for it; but instead of giving it to him, I grab him by his shirt, pulling him close to me, and I hiss in his face.  
“I don’t care what you think is going on between you and my brother, but it’s not happening, comprende? My brother doesn’t know what you’re all about, but I do.  
He looks at me with dumb hate in his swampy eyes but says nothing.  
“Am I getting through that rock skull of yours, or do I have to pound it in through your ears?”  
“Get your hands off me.”  
I grip his shirt a little harder. I think maybe I’ve got some chest hairs in there, but he doesn’t the pain. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”  
“I said, Get your stinking hands off me or I’m gonna find a new use for this club.”  
That’s just the kind of thing I’m expecting to hear from a guy like this. I don’t let him go. “Let’s see what use you’ve got in mind,” I say.  
He doesn’t do anything. I didn’t think he would. Finally I let him go. “Stay away from my brother,” I tell him.  
He grabs the ball from my hand and strides back to Louis. “I don’t feel like playing anymore,” he says, and stalks off with Louis hurrying behind him. He throws me a gaze of pure, unadulterated hatred, and I wave. My mission of coercion is accomplished.  
Danielle, who did not care for the way she played this hole, claims herself a do over. She comes up beside me and watches the retreat of my brother and the Swamp Thang. “Where are they going?”  
“Their separate ways,” I say. Danielle swings, and her ball bounces up, wedging in the miniature girders of the Eiffel Tower.  
“I hate the Eiffel Tower,” she says, and I smile at her, secretly relishing my victory.  
Sometimes you have to take control of a situation. Sometimes you have to be the dominant force; otherwise chaos becomes law. I mean, look at lacrosse. This is a game that started as Native American warfare, with warriors breaking their enemies’ bones with their sticks as they carried the ball for miles. Even soccer was played with human heads once upon a time. It took the brute force of civilization to tame all that into lawful competition. But one look at the Bruiser and you know that there’s nothing lawful about him. The fact that Louis can’t see that scares me, because there will come a time when I can’t protect him… and what if someday he finds out the hard way about guys who still see life as head-kicking warfare. You hear stories all the time.  
So hate me all you want, Louis, for what I did here; but that will pass-and someday, if we’re lucky, we’ll both look back at this day and you’ll say “Thank you, Liam, for caring enough to protect me from the big and the bad.”


	4. Revelation

Liam

Louis comes into my room that night, grabs me by the shoulders, and pushes me back onto my bed so hard, my head hits the wall.  
“Ow!”  
“You’re pond scum!” he says to me.  
I don’t deny the charge, but sometimes pond scum prevails.  
“What did you say to him behind the walrus?” he asks.  
“I read his Miranda rights,” I told him. “He has the right to remain silent; he has the right to find some other boy to drool over-y’know, the normal things you’d say to a criminal.”  
“He’s never been arrested!” he said. “Those are just stories made up by idiots like you. He’s just misunderstood; but I, for one, am making the effort to understand him. He will not give in to your threats; and I will not stop seeing him, no matter how much bullying you do!”  
That makes me laugh. “Bullying? Give me a break.”  
“It’s true, Liam! You’re a bully. You’ve always been a bully.”  
“Says who?” I immediately imagine punching out anyone who might call me a bully, and then realize that my own thoughts are proving Louis’ point, which just makes me want to punch someone even more. This is what we call a vicious cycle, and I don’t feel all that good about it. I never thought of myself as a bully; and although this isn’t the first such accusation, it’s the first one that breaks through my defenses and hits home. Suddenly I realize that maybe, in some people’s eyes, I am. This is what we call a revelation. Revelations are never convenient, and always annoying.  
“Stay away from Harry!” he warns me, then he turns to leave; but I don’t let him go.  
“I get it, okay?” I tell him. He lingers by the door. “He’s the first boy you like who likes you back, so it feels kind of special. I get it.”  
He turns to me, some of his steam cooling in the kettle. “He’s not the first,” he says. “Just the first in my adult life.”  
I find it funny that we’re the same age, give or take a quarter of an hour, and yet he considers himself an adult.  
“Be careful, Louis… because you have to admit, this guy is kind of… beneath you.”  
He looks at me before he leaves, sadly shaking his head. “You be careful, Liam. Being a snob can make a person very, very ugly.”


	5. Factoids

Liam

 

I never considered myself a bully. I never considered myself a snob. But then, who does? There’s a way to objectively analyze it. All you have to do is look at the facts.  
Fact #1) I’m reasonably smart. I’m no genius, but I get good grades without ever having to try. It really ticks off the kids who have to study their brains out to make the grade. It’s not like I brag about it, but my mere existence is enough to breed resentment in certain circles.  
Fact #2) I’m coordinated. Not my fault either, I just came that way. It made it easier for me to excel at sports when I was a kid and to build the skills to be a contender in quite a few of them.  
Fact #3) I’m reasonably decent looking. I’m no pretty boy, and I don’t have six-pack abs or anything; but when it comes to looks, confidence counts for a lot, and I’m nothing if not confident. Between you and me, I think I project a lot better looking than I actually am.  
Fact #4) We’re not exactly hurting for money. We’re by no means rich, but we don’t go hungry either. Both Mom and Dad have tenure at the university and pull in decent salaries. They drive modest but respectable cars, and I suspect that when Louis and I start driving, we’ll both get our own modest but respectable cars.  
So, does all this make me a snob? Is it wrong for me to think that the Bruiser, with his creepy family and slimy ways, is somehow lower than me? _Yes, it does make you a snob,_ I hear Louis’ voice telling me in my head. _It does, Liam, because there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance. There’s a fine line between being assertive and being a bully. And you’re on the wrong side of both lines._  
We’re not telepathic twins or anything, but sometimes I wonder because once in a while I have fictional conversations with him. It irks me that, even in my imagination, he can always, always have the last word.


	6. Decimated

**_ Liam _ **

**__ **

**__ **

            I don’t know where my head is at on Monday. Maybe it’s because I feel a little bit guilty for being so mean to the Bruiser. Anyway, I do my best to suspend judgment on him; and, for Louis’ sake, I try to keep an open mind.

            It’s not until the end of the day that I run into him in the most awkward and uncomfortable of situations.

            I’m early into the locker room for lacrosse practice, and he’s just getting done with PE. He’s the last kid there-apparently he doesn’t dress with the other kids; he waits until the rest of them are gone.

            The instant I see him, I know why.

            The first thing I see is his back. It’s enough to scare anyone. There’s damage there, strange damage. It’s impossible to tell what has caused it. Scars and pockmarks; discolorations; a big bruise on his shoulder, yellowed around the edges. His back is decimated, like the cratered surface of the moon.

            I just stand there staring. He slips on his shirt, not even knowing that I’m there. Then he turns around and catches me watching him. He knows I’ve seen his back. I stare for a moment too long.

            “What do _you_ want?” he asks without looking me in the eye.

            I want to match his nasty tone, but I know I have to curb my bully/snob factor. Letting something like that run unchecked will turn you into a creep. My one saving grace is that true creeps don’t ever know they are; and if I’m worried about becoming one, maybe it means I won’t. The only thing I can think of to say is “So what kind of name is Harry? Were you named after someone?”

            He looks at me like it’s a trick question. “What do you care?”

            “I don’t. I’m just wondering.”

            He doesn’t answer me; he just puts on his jacket; a beat-up leather bomber that looks like it has actually seen several generations of war. Still, the scars on the jacket are nothing compared to what I saw on his back. “Cool jacket,” I say. “Where’d you get it?”

            “Thrift store,” he answers.

            I hold back the urge to say “It figures,” and instead I just say, “Cool.”

            He stands facing me now, shoulders squared. Gunslinger position. It’s a stance that says “C’mon, I dare you.” He doesn’t trust me, but that’s just fine. I don’t trust him either. I can’t even say I dislike him any less; but now I’m curious and worried, and not just for Louis but maybe a little bit for him, too. Who could do things like that to his body and get away with it, especially to a guy as big as him?

            “So, what is it you want?” he asks, “because I got things to do.”

            “Who says I want anything?” That’s when I realize that I’m in gunslinger position, too, blocking his way out. I step aside to let him pass. I think he expects me to trip him, or kick him or something, I wonder if he’s disappointed when I don’t.

            “My great-grandfather,” he says as he passes. “That’s who I was named after.”

            And he’s gone, just as a bunch of kids from my lacrosse team enter.     

 


	7. Receptacle

**_ Liam _ **

**__ **

            Our parents never spanked us. They come from the brave new world of time-out and positive reinforcement.

            I’ve always been a very physical kid, though, always using my fists or my body as a battering ram. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been hauled into the principal’s office for fighting. I’ve given my share of black eyes and bloody noses and gotten my share of them as well-and playing lacrosse, well, there’s never a time when I don’t have some bruise on my body, somewhere.

            But the kind of things I saw on the Bruiser made his nickname hit home for me. None of those marks could be explained away innocently. He didn’t get that way from fighting, or from sports. He got that way from being the human receptacle of someone else’s brutality.


	8. Obtuse

**_ Liam _ **

**__ **

**__ **

Mom teaches a class on nineteenth-century realism on Monday nights, so that’s Dad’s night to not cook. He orders fast food just a skillfully as Mom does. The three of us sit at the dinner table eating KFC on flimsy paper plates with plastic sporks. Whoever invented the spork should be killed. Dad peels the breading from his chicken and gives it to Louis, allowing him to savor all eleven herbs and spices that make it so finger-lickin’ good.

            “I saw the Bruiser today,” I tell Louis as we eat. “Harry, I mean.”

            “And how did you torment him?” he snaps.

            I don’t take the bait. Instead I say, “It was in the locker room. He had his shirt off.” I take a bite of my chicken, chew, and swallow. “Have you ever seen him with his shirt off?”

            Dad looks up from his skinless chicken and talks with his mouth full. “Exactly why would he see him with his shirt off?”

            “Oh, puh-leese!” Louis says to him. “Let’s not get out the heart paddles, Dad; he’s never been bare chested in my presence.” Now Louis turns his attention to me, studying me, trying to figure out what sinister maneuver I’m working here. The truth is, I’m just curious as to what he knows, or at least what he suspects.

            “Why would you ask that question?” he says; but since I don’t know any more than what I saw, I don’t want to tell him.

            “Never mind,” I say, “it’s not important.” I try unsuccessfully to scrape the last of the mashed potatoes from the bottom of the Styrofoam cup with my spork.

            “You are so obtuse!” Louis says, exasperated.

            I am calm in my response. “Do you mean stupid, or angular? You need to be more specific with your insults.”

            “Jerk!”

            “No thanks,” I tell her. “I much prefer the Colonel’s seasonings to Jamaican spice.”

            It probably would be in my best interests to leave Louis alone for the rest of the night and not push things, but I can’t do that. After dinner I go up to Louis’ room. His door is open, but still I knock timidly. I’m never timid, but tonight I am.

            Louis must notice me because he looks up at me from his homework, and his standard expression of annoyance changes. Now he looks curious, maybe even a little concerned, because he asks, “What’s wrong?”

            I shrug. “Nothing. I just wanted to talk to you about Harry.”

            “I don’t want to talk to you,” Louis says.

            “I know,” I say to him, “but I think you should listen.”

            He crosses his arms, clearly ready to dismiss anything I say.

            “You know where he lives, right?” I ask.

            “He lives in a house,” Louis says, “just like we do.”

            “And have you met his family? His uncle, I mean, the one he lives with?”

            “Where are you going with this?” Louis asks.

            “Does he talk about his uncle?”

            “No,” says Louis.

            “Maybe you should ask him.” Then I leave it in his hands and turn to go; but when I glance back, I can see him staring at his homework, pencil in hand but doing no work. Good. He’s thinking about it. I don’t know what he’ll do, but he’s thinking about it. I don’t even know what I want him to do.     


	9. Deteriorating

**_ Liam _ **

**__ **

**__ **

            Our neighborhood has the distinction of being one of the fastest-growing planned communities in the state. Look at an empty field, now blink; and when you open your eyes, there’s a whole housing development there. Blink again; this time there’s a new mall right next to it. I can imagine farmers staring, bewildered, at a jungle of pink stucco and red-tile roofs, wondering how their cornfield became a subdivision while they weren’t looking. In reality those farmers sold their plots of land for ridiculous prices and made out like bandits, so I can’t really feel sorry for them. But then there are whole plots of land where the owners hold out for more money and missed the boat.

            The Bruiser lives in such a place. It had once been a small farm, but it hadn’t been cultivated for a long time. Crops had long ago given way to a wild field of weedy brush, a deteriorating eyesore amid the perfectly manicured lawns of our little neighborhood.

            There’s a bull on the property, old and a little too tired to be cranky. It seems to serve no purpose, not even to itself. Occasionally kids will torment it on the way to school. It’ll snort, make like it’s going to charge the fence, and then give up, realizing that it’s not worth the effort. I imagine the Bruiser is somewhat like that bull.

            The day I follow the Bruiser home is the day the bull dies.   


	10. Intercession

**_ Liam _ **

**__ **

**__ **

            I’m not exactly what you would call stealthy, but the Bruiser isn’t all that observant either, so I’m able to follow him all the way home. I don’t know what I expect to find, but curiosity is rarely rational. Besides, it’s easy to tell myself that it’s more than just curiosity. It’s what lawyers call “due diligence” –necessary research –and I’m not even doing it for myself; it’s for Louis’ sake, although if he knew I was tailing his boyfriend, he’d rip me a new digestive tract.

            Even though I know where he lives, I want to observe what he does. Are there other kids he meets up with on the way home? A drug dealer, maybe? I promise myself I won’t jump to any conclusions, but I keep my eyes open for anything out of the ordinary.

            He makes no contact with anyone today. He’s a true loner, deep in his own thoughts, whatever they might be. He glances behind him once; but we’re separated by a few groups of other kids, keeping me camouflaged. Although I have my lacrosse stick with me, I keep it low, because if he spots that, it’ll draw his attention and he’ll see that I’m the one holding it.

            His property–about an acre–is surrounded by a tall chain-link fence, and an alley runs beside the fence like a concrete moat separating modern suburbia from the weedy little patch of uncultivated farmland. Across the alley is a strip mall, complete with a supermarket, an ice-cream shop, a Hallmark, and a place called Happi Nails, where I assume women go to make their nails happy. Dumpsters stand in the alley up against the Bruiser’s property fence like dark green barricades erected to keep out his world.

            The Bruiser opens a rusted gate that bears a _No Trespassing_ sign and latches it behind him, then crosses through the weeds toward his house. I follow along in the adjacent alley and peer between two of the Dumpsters. Looking through that rusted chain-link fence is like looking into a whole other time and place. The old one-story farmhouse is more like a shack. There’s a big, rusted propane tank, and the farmhouse roof is shedding shingles. The building seems to list, as if it has shifted off its foundation. The place is painted a color that I think was once green but has since faded to various shades that have no specific name on the color spectrum. And the smell of the place… well, it smells like bull and the stuff a bull leaves behind. I pity the neighbors downwind.

            Today, however, the lone bull on the farm isn’t very active. In fact, it doesn’t look right at all. I don’t know much about livestock, but if a large animal is lying on its side with its head at a funny angle and its eyes open, chances are it’s not taking a nap.

            I watch it for a long time waiting for it to move, but it doesn’t; and now I know something’s wrong, because the Bruiser’s just standing there staring at it with the same dumb expression I must have on my own face. That’s when his brother comes out onto the porch.

            Snapshot of kid brother:

            Bare feet, torn jeans, and a striped shirt that’s as faded as the wood slats of the old farmhouse. He’s got a runny nose I can see glistening all the way from here, and dirty blond hair where the “dirty” actually means dirty. Flocks of birds could make their nest in there and no one would know, and I’m only slightly exaggerating. This kid is the definition of “feral child.”

            So the kid comes out onto the porch, all snot nosed and teary eyed, and says to the Bruiser, “Tri-tip is sick, Haz. You can help him, right?”

            The Bruiser just stands there looking at the bull and finally, slowly, turns to his brother. “Nothing’s gonna help him, Niall.”

            “No!” says Niall. “No! Don’t say that; he’s just sick is all. You can fix it; you always fix it!”

            “I’m sorry, Niall,” says the Bruiser; and then, all tears and drama, Niall races to the deceased bull, throws himself on it, and tries to give it a weird, awkward hug, but his arms can’t reach around the thing.

            “No, no, no!” Niall cries.

            Maybe I should be feeling something here-some sort of sadness-because, after all, this is clearly a beloved pet; but it’s all so weird. It’s like I’m watching the psychotic version of _Old Yeller,_ where the dog has been digitally replaced by this sorry old bull with lonely eyes that stare at me from across the field. Eyes that seem to be asking, “Do I really need this?”

            That’s when the third and final family member comes out onto the porch.

            Portrait of the Bruiser’s uncle:

            Well-worn pointy boots, a tarnished belt buckle about half the size of a hubcap, tentaclelike tattoos that disappear up into his shirtsleeves, gray wispy hair, and bristly beard stubble. By the way he holds onto the doorframe as he steps out, I can tell he’s either drunk or hungover. I want to scream at him, “Don’t you know you’re a walking stereotype?” The bitter, aging redneck. I’m sure his name is something like Wyatt or Clem; a wannabe cowboy whose cow just dropped dead.

            As if to acknowledge my assessment, the man flicks a cigarette butt and says, “I shoulda sold that bull for dog food years ago.”

            “Don’t say that, Uncle Hoyt!” wails Niall.

            “You see what I’ve gotta put up with?” Uncle Hoyt says to the Bruiser. “You see?” As if it’s all the Bruiser’s fault. “Where you been? How come you’re not home on time?”

            “I _am_ home on time.” Then the bruiser asks his uncle, “When did it happen?”

            “How the hell should I know?”

            Over by the bull, Niall continues to wail. “It’s not true… It’s not true…”

            “Will you shut him up?” demands Uncle Hoyt.

            The Bruiser moves to his brother and pries him away from the dead bull; but the kid goes ballistic, screaming and cursing and fighting and kicking, limbs flailing like a spider monkey.

            “Niall, stop it!” the Bruiser yells; but the kid’s gone into demonic possession mode, scratching and biting until it’s all the Bruiser can do just to peel him off himself. And the second he does, Niall jumps back on the bull, clinging to it like cellophane and bawling even more loudly than before.

            That’s when Uncle Hoyt reaches down, undoes his belt buckle, and in a single move pulls his belt out of his pants, wrapping the end of it around his palm like it’s something he does on a regular basis. He storms toward the boy, buckle end dangling. “IT’S DEAD!” the man screams. “GET YOUR SNIVELIN’ ASS AWAY FROM IT OR I SWEAR I’LL WAIL ON YOUR HIDE TWELVE WAYS TILL DOOMSDAY.” He brings his arm back, threatening to swing the buckle-and the Bruiser doesn’t do a thing. He just stands there watching, like he’s helpless to stop it.

            “ _No!_ ”

            That’s my voice. I don’t even realize I’m going to shout it until the word’s already out of my mouth. I never meant to intercede, but I can’t help it. Someone has to stop this.

            Suddenly they all turn to me, and now I’m part of the cast of this twisted old Western. I have no choice but to take my place in the scene. I drop my backpack but keep hold of my lacrosse stick. Then I quickly climb the Dumpster and jump across the fence, racing toward the three of them. The moment I’m close enough, I raise my lacrosse stick like a weapon, perhaps the way it was done back in the days when the game was warfare. Then I stare the man in his hateful, rheumy eyes and say, “If you hit that kid, I will take you down!”

            And everything freezes like a snow globe. I half expect little flakes to start swimming all around us. Then the Bruiser steps in front of me. He grabs me with his heavy hands, and he whispers angrily into my ear, “Stay out of this!”

            I try to pull free from the Bruiser’s grasp, but he’s just too big. As I struggle, my lacrosse stick falls to the ground.

            “Who the hell are you?” Uncle Hoyt finally says now that he’s not in immediate danger of having his head bashed in.

            The Bruiser pushes me back. “Stay out of this!” he says again. “This isn’t any of your business.”

            “Please, Uncle Hoyt,” pleads Niall, “leave Tri-tip alone.”

            Uncle Hoyt looks at me, sizing me up. “This is a friend of yours?” he asks the Bruiser.

            “No!” says the Bruiser quickly. “Just some kid from school.”

            Uncle Hoyt spits on the ground, giving me a dirty look. Then he turns and saunters inside, dragging the belt like that buckle’s his pet on a leash. The screen door closes and I can’t see him anymore, but I hear him calling from inside: “You dispose of that bull, Harry. I don’t wanna know about it.”

            The Bruiser stares at me with anger that ought to be directed at his uncle, and now the only sounds are clanking shopping carts from the market beyond the fence and the wails of a little boy clinging to a dead beast that’s already collecting flies.

            With Uncle Hoyt gone, the Bruiser holds my gaze only a moment more before he decides I’m not worth the effort. Then he goes over to his brother… but instead of comforting him, he kneels beside him, puts his hands on the bull just like his brother, and just like his brother he begins to grieve. It starts with mild weeping but soon crescendos into the same tortured sobs as his little brother, both of them wailing in a strange harmony of misery.

            I’m embarrassed to be watching-it’s as if I’m witnessing something too personal to view-but I can’t look away. I want to leave, but it would be like walking out in the middle of a funeral.

            A few minutes more and Niall’s sobbing begins to resolve into whimpers; but the Bruiser is still doubled over in his sorrow, the sobs so intense I can almost feel the ground shake as his chest heaves. In a moment Niall has fully recovered, as if all he needed was for someone else to share his grief.

            The Bruiser’s anguished sobs go on for at least another minute while Niall waits, patient and untroubled, playing tic-tac-toe in the dirt.

            Finally the Bruiser’s sobs begin to trail off. He gets control of himself. Then he stands and picks up Niall, who wraps his spidery arms around his big brother’s neck. Harry carries his brother inside without even looking at me once.

            I stand there for a while, more than ready to leave yet feeling like there’s something left undone. Finally I pick up my lacrosse stick and try to wipe off the mud-at least I hope it’s mud. I turn to go, deciding that this was all just one big mistake, when I hear the screen door creak open behind me. I turn to see the Bruiser coming outside again.

            “Mind telling me what you’re doing here?” he asks.

            I’m beyond making up excuses now, beyond caring what comes out of my mouth. And when you don’t care what you say, the truth comes with amazing ease. “I was spying on you to find out what’s wrong with you and your family.”

            I expect him to spew something nasty at me, but instead he just sits on the porch steps and says, “Find out all that you wanted to know?”

            “Enough,” I answer him. “Were you just gonna let your uncle beat on your brother?”

            He looks me dead in the eyes. “What makes you so sure he would do it?”

            “You don’t pull out your belt like that unless you plan to use it.”

            The Bruiser just shrugs. “How do you know? Do you think you know my uncle better than I do? Maybe he just likes to hear himself yell-did you ever think of that?”

            I can’t quite figure all of this out, but he’s put enough doubt into my mind now so that I can’t answer him, which I’m sure is what he wants. But then I remember something.

            “I saw your back,” I remind him. “I think I can put two and two together.”

            Now his gaze looks a little angry again. A little scared. “Two and two doesn’t always equal four.” There’s something about his tone of voice-something that says maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s not what I think. But there is also something in his voice that says it’s worse.

            “Anyway,” he says, “it was gutsy of you to stand up to Uncle Hoyt like that.”

            “Yeah, well…”

            “You wanna come in?” he asks. This I was not expecting.

            “Why would I want to do that?”

            He shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe to see that we don’t live with rats. To see that I’m not building pipe bombs in my basement.”

            “I never said you were.”

            “But I bet you thought it.”

            I look away from him at that. The truth is, from the moment I found out he was dating Louis, I thought every possible bad thing my imagination could muster up about him. Pipe bombs in the basement were on the milder end of the spectrum.

            “C’mon,” he said, “I’ll get you something to drink.”

            Maybe it did take guts to stand up to his crazy, belt-wielding uncle, but I think it took more guts for the Bruiser to invite me inside.    

 

 


	11. Détente

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I'm so sorry I haven't updated in so long! I kept putting it off because I had so much school work, but then school got cancelled today because of the weather and I decided I didn't really have any other excuses. So, here it is! I hope to get a couple more chapter up by the end of the day.
> 
> On another note, I am currently looking for a beta! If you or anyone you know is interested, please message or email me!!

**_ Liam _ **

**__ **

**__ **

            I follow the Bruiser in. I have to say, I’m a little disappointed at what I find. It’s just a house. Sure, it’s kind of run-down and sparsely decorated, but it’s still just a house. The one thing about it, though, is that all the colors are off, just like on the outside. The wallpaper is faded, the sofa has stains on the cushions, the blue carpet is mottled purple and brown in spots. _A bruise,_ I think, _the entire house is like one big bruise._

            I can hear a TV playing somewhere deeper in the house. Beyond the kitchen is an arched doorway, dark except for the flickering light of the TV. There must be a family room back there, but somehow I suspect family has little to do with it. I’m sure it’s Uncle Hoyt’s lair, complete with a deteriorating recliner, a TV with color issues, and empty beer cans multiplying like dust bunnies.

            The Bruiser pours me some lemonade. “I promise it’s not poisoned,” he says.

            I don’t want to touch anything. Not because it’s dirty but because it feels unclean. I can’t quite explain the difference, although I suspect it has something to do with my own snob factor. Conflicted, I force myself to sit in a chair at the kitchen table. There are dirty dishes in the sink. He notices me noticing.

            “Sorry,” he says, “the dishes are _my_ job. I usually take care of them when I get home.”

            “What does you uncle do?” I asked him.

            “Road construction,” Harry says. “He works nights, driving a steamroller for the Transportation Authority.”

            Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. I get this image of a maniacal Uncle Hoyt rolling over defenseless wildlife caught in the unset asphalt.

            I pick up my glass, and he looks at my knuckles. Four out of five knuckles on my right hand have scabs in various states of healing. “Where’d you get those,” he asks, “beating on band geeks?”

            He’s trying to push my buttons. I don’t let him. “Lacrosse,” I tell him.’

            “Right,” he says. “Must be a rough sport.”

            I shrug. “Good for getting out your aggression.”

            He nods. “What do you do in the off-season?”

            “I use the stick to smash mailboxes.”

            He looks at me like I’m serious.

            “I’m kidding,” I tell him, but he doesn’t seem entirely convinced. I’m uncomfortable with the conversation being all about me, so I flip it back on him.

            “So, your uncle’s got a government job; he must pull in a decent salary.”

            The question is right there, although I don’t ask it directly: _If he’s got a decent job, then why do you live like this?_

The Bruiser glances back toward the family room. The shifting glow from the TV plays on the arched doorway like lightning, making it look like a portal to another dimension. The gateway to Hoyt-Hell: _Abandon all hope ye who enter._ He turns back to me and speaks softly. “My uncle’s got an ex-wife and three kids in Atlanta. The government garnishes his wages.”

            “Garnish,” I say. “I thought that was, like, parsley on a dinner plate.”

            The Bruiser grins. “So there’s something I know that you don’t?” He relishes the moment before explaining. “Garnishing means the government takes child support right out of his salary even before he gets the check because they know he won’t pay it otherwise.” The Bruiser thinks about it and shakes his head. “Funny-he runs out on his wife and three kids and then he ends up stuck with Niall and me.”

            I’m about to ask him how that came to be, but I realize it must not be a pretty story. If they’re stuck with a loser uncle, it means that their parents are gone in one way or another. Dead, incarcerated, or AWOL. No joy in an any of the possibilities, so I don’t ask.

            “You’re uncle sounds like quite a guy,” I say, the sarcasm practically pooling around my ankles, adding another stain to the carpet.

            “There are worse things,” he says.

            Right about now Niall comes out of his room, shirtless.

            “My shirt smelled like Tri-tip,” he says, “but I got no clean shirts. It’s your fault I got no clean shirts!” he tells his brother.

            The Bruiser sighs and says to me, “I do the laundry here, too.”

            I wonder if there are any chores he doesn’t do.

            When I glance at Niall again, I note that the kid’s back is nothing like his brother’s. No bruises, no scars, no sign that their short-tempered uncle beats him at all. I begin to wonder if maybe I’m wrong in assuming the man is an abuser. Maybe he just blusters, but he’s all wind and no weather. Still, it doesn’t answer the question about the Bruiser’s back. The Bruiser goes to a little laundry room just off the kitchen and mines through a huge pile of clothes on top of the dryer. He pulls out a small T-shirt and tosses it to Niall.

            Niall scowls at him, smells the shirt just in case, and walks away satisfied. He disappears into his room, struggling, Houdini-like, to get his head and arms into the shirt at the same time.

            The Bruiser comes back out to join me in the kitchen.

            “So, you haven’t gotten to the part where you ask me to stay away from your brother. You tried threatening me and that didn’t work, so now I figure you’re going to try it more respectfully.”

            I look away from him. I know it might make me seem guilty, but, really, I’m feeling angry at myself for having bullied him in the first place.

            “Louis makes his own decisions,” I tell him, then add, “but I won’t be happy if he comes anywhere near Uncle Hoyt.”

            “Neither will I,” he says, “and just in case you’re worried, I’m not like my uncle.”

            “I can see that.” Then I hold out my hand to him. “So… no hard feelings?”

            He looks at my hand for a few moments, and I think that maybe there are hard feelings after all; but then he shakes it with a decisive, confident grasp.

            We nod to each other-an understanding has been reached, like a détente between two nations that would otherwise be at war.

            Then Uncle Hoyt slinks out from his lair, and Harry withdraws his hand like he’s been caught with it in the cookie jar. The man looks at us suspiciously, as if we’re plotting against him. “What’s he still doing here? Didn’t I tell you to get rid of Tri-tip?”

            The Bruiser opens his mouth to say something, but I speak first. “What is he supposed to do, snap his fingers and make it go away?”

            The man grins, and it’s something slimy and nasty. All of a sudden I feel unclean again. “Can’t expect you to lift the whole animal at once,” he says. “The chain saw’s out in the shed.”


	12. Misdirection

**_ Liam _ **

**__ **

**__ **

            When I get home that night, I don’t say anything to Louis about where I was and what I did that afternoon. Even when he comments at dinner that I smell funny, I just tell him I’ll take a shower-even though I’ve already taken two.

            I won’t get into the details of Tri-tip’s disposal. It was not a pretty sight. I can only thank God there are Dumpsters just on the other side of the Bruiser’s fence. Now I understand the close-knit nature of the Mafia, because there’s something about disposing of a body.

            The next day I see the Bruiser during passing, between second and third periods. We nod to each other an unspoken greeting, almost like it’s something secret. He raises a hand to hoist his backpack farther up on his shoulder, and that’s when I notice the knuckles on his right hand. Four out of five knuckles are all raw and starting to scab. I figure he must have scraped them up pretty badly during out bull-carving extravaganza yesterday afternoon.

            Reflexively I look at my own knuckles and notice right away that my scabs are gone. I tend to heal quickly, so I try to dismiss it. After all, how often do I actually look at my knuckles? I get scraped and bruised so much, I don’t notice it anymore.

            Except that I _did_ notice my scabbed knuckles yesterday. The Bruiser and I both did.

            I try to tell myself it’s nothing, that it’s one of life’s simple tricks, just like a stage magician’s clever misdirection to keep the audience baffled. Yet deep down I know there’s something more going on here. Something truly inexplicable I’m afraid to consider.


	13. Emphatically

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh! I finally get to write from Louis' point of view!!! I'm so excited and I hope this chapter lives up to all expectations!!!

**_ Louis _ **

**__ **

**__ **

            My brother’s an idiot.

            Sure, Liam’s smart, but he’s an idiot in all the other ways that matter. Such as when he forced his way into our miniature golf game and intimidated Harry just because we went out on a date. It wasn’t even an _evening_ date; it was a middle-of-the-afternoon date, which as anyone can tell you, is barely a date at all. The problem with Liam is that he has to be in control of everything. It’s like he’s worried the whole world will fall apart if he’s not holding it together. He thinks no one can survive without the protection of his iron fist, least of all me.

            Well, in spite of what Liam might think, I am not entirely void of common sense, thank you very much. I deal with boys far better than he deals with girls. Don’t believe me? Then take a nice, long look at his current “relationship” with Danielle.

            I, on the other hand, know that with any boy it’s important to truly get to know him before the dates get serious. Not that I have all that much experience, but I’m blessed with friends who do. Their lives are like caution signs in the road, warning me against all the ill-advised things they have done.

From Tyler I learned never to go out on a date with the younger brother of the most popular guy in school… because he thinks he has something to prove, and he’ll try to prove it on you.

From Troy I learned to avoid any boy with an ex-boyfriend who hates him with every fiber of their being… because chances are there’s a reason he hates him so much, and you may find out the hard way.

From Zayn I learned that, while it’s true that most guys have one thing on their mind, most are greatly relieved and easier to deal with if you make it emphatically clear right up front that they’re not going to get that one thing in the foreseeable future. Or at least not from you. Once that becomes clear, either they go after some boy who never learned the warning signs, or they stick around.

I tried out point number three on a boy last year, and it worked. His name was Max-my first and only boyfriend before Harry-and we got a whole series of necessary milestones out of the way. First date, first kiss, first conniption fit from my parents for breaking curfew. He got the first suspicious look from my father, and I got the first suspicious look from his mother. With all those firsts out of the way, we were free to live normal lives.

We eventually broke up, of course, because all training-wheel relationships must die if we ever intend to graduate from the sidewalk into the bike lane. We’ve remained friends, though, which has been very good for him socially.

As for me, popularity was never something I worried much about. I’ve always been as popular as I needed to be with the people I cared about, and fairly well liked, too-if oyu don’t count a handful of evil, insecure Ken dolls who call me effeminate because I’m not as tall or as buff as any of them.

So then, with all that taken into account, I felt I was entirely conscious of the risks, and fully prepared to date Harry Styles.

            I was spectacularly wrong.


	14. Ibex

**_ Louis _ **

**__ **

**__ **

            As much as I hate to admit it, my brother, Liam, was right about what first attracted me to Harry. It was the stray dog thing.

            I’ve always had a dangerously unguarded place in my heart for strays. There was the time when I was ten and brought home a seriously psychotic shih tzu, which proceeded to attack everyone’s ankles, drawing more blood than so little a dog should be capable of doing. We named him Piranha and gave him to an animal rescue center that has a no-kill policy, although later I heard that Piranha almost caused them to change their policy.

            Regardless, I’ve discovered that nine out of ten strays have issues that are not life threatening, so I have no desire to change my ways, thank you very much.

            When it came to Harry Styles, he might have had a home, but he was a stray in every other sense of the word.

            It all began the day he showed up in the library.

            I was a library aide at the time, which involved a lot of hanging around while the librarian tried to come up with busywork for me to do. I didn’t mind, because it gave me time to read, and be among the books. Do you know that if you take the books in an average school library and stretched all those words into a single line, the line would go all the way around the world? Actually, I made that up, but doesn’t it sound like it should be true?

            Part of my job was to help other kids find books, because not everyone has a keenly organized mind. Some kids could wander the library for hours and still have no idea how to find anything. For them, the Dewey Decimal System might as well be advanced calculus.

            I figured that here was one of those kids, because I found him lurking in the poetry section looking like a deer caught in the headlights. A really big deer-maybe a caribou or an ibex.

            “Can I help you find something?” I asked as politely as I could, since I’ve been known to scares off the more timid wildlife.

            “Where’s the Allen Ginsberg?” he asked.

            It took me by surprise. No one came into our school library looking for Allen Ginsberg. I began to scan the poetry shelf alphabetically. “Is it for an assignment?” I was genuinely curious as to which teacher might assign radical beatnik poetry. Probably Mr. Bellini, who we all secretly believed had his brain fried long ago by various and sundry psychedelic chemicals.

            “No assignment,” he said. “I just felt like reading Ginsberg again.”

            That stopped me in midscan. In my experience, there are three reasons why a boy will want to take out a book on poetry:

  * To impress somebody
  * For a class assignment
  * To impress somebody



So, thinking myself oh-so-smart, I smugly said, “What’s his name?”

He looked at me, blinking with those ibex eyes. A nice shade of green, I might add.

“Whose name?” he asked.

At this point I felt embarrassed about having to explain my assumption, so I didn’t. “Never mind,” I said, then quickly found the book and handed it to him. “Here you go.”

“Yeah, this is the one. Thanks.”

            Still, I found it hard to believe. I mean, Allen Ginsberg is not exactly mainstream. His stuff is out there, even by poetry standards. “So… you just want to read it for… pleasure?”

            “Something wrong with that?”

            “No, no, it’s just…” I knew it was time to give up entirely, as I was truly making a fool of myself. “Forget I said anything. Enjoy the book.”

            Then he looked down at the book. “I can’t really explain it,” he said. “It makes me feel something, but I don’t have to feel it about some _one,_ so I get off easy.”

            It was an odd thing to say-so odd that it made me laugh. Of course, he didn’t appreciate that and turned to leave.

            Something inside me didn’t want our encounter-among-the-stacks to end like this, so before he reached the end of the aisle, I said, “Did you know Allen Ginsberg tried to levitate the Pentagon?”

            He turned back to me. “He did?”

            “Yes. He and a whole bunch of Vietnam war protestors encircled the Pentagon, then sat in the lotus position and started meditating on levitating the Pentagon at the same time.”

            “Did it work?”

            I nodded. “They measured a height change of one point seven millimeters.”

            “Really?”

            “No, I made that part up. But wouldn’t it be wild if it were true?”

            He laughed at that, and now seemed like a reasonable time to hold out my hand invitingly and introduce myself. “Hi, I’m Louis,” I said.

            “Yeah, I know.” He shook my hand, which almost disappeared into his.

            He still hadn’t introduced himself. Since he knew my name, I wanted him to think I knew his name, too.

            “I’ll need you ID card to check out the book,” I told him.

            He handed it to me, and I glanced at the name quickly as we made our way to the circulation desk. “Well, Harry, if you want my advice on other poets, let me know.”

            “I just like the angry ones,” he said. “Know any more?”

            “Plenty.” Which was not entirely true, but I knew angry poetry was highly Googleable.

            As he left, I tried to size him up in full view. He was large, but not fat, sloppy-not grungy. His clothes seemed worn, but not stylishly so; they were actually worn, and the legs were short enough to prove they’d been around for at least two inches of growth. And although most boys look pretentious in a distressed leather bomber jacket, it seemed natural on him.

            It was then that I made the connection-and made it so powerfully, I almost gasped. Harry Styles. This is the boy they call the Bruiser! Always a little too big to be picked on, a little too mad-creepy to be in anyone’s clique. He was always just _there,_ through elementary school and middle school, lingering in the background. I’d been in a couple of classes with him over the years, but it had been like we were on different planets.

            It was hard to reconcile the memory of that kid with the boy I met that day-but one thing was certain: Harry was a stray, and someone most definitely needed to take him in.  


	15. Howlingly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so, so, so sorry that I haven't updated in so long! I've been super busy with school studying for upcoming finals, and dance tryouts are next week so I'm a little nervous about that too. I know you don't want to hear my excuses though, so I am now officially saying that I will be updating this story every single week on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. I'm also still searching for a beta!!!!! If you are interested, please let me know!

**_ Louis _ **

**__ **

**__ **

            In defiance of Liam’s campaign to remove Harry from my life, I made every effort to see him as much as possible. All right, I’ll admit my motives were mixed, but they didn’t stay that way for long. Spite against my brother, compassion for a stray, and general curiosity quickly gave way to something deeper – something more real and maybe even more dangerous, because when you truly start to care about someone, you become vulnerable to all sorts of things. I think Harry knew that better than anyone.

            Our first date at Wackworld was a disaster thanks to Liam’s meddling, and I was determined that our second date would be a success. But what would that date be? During school that week we saw each other at lunch, and he offered to take me to the movies, as most guys do. The movie-date must have been invented by a guy: no possible way to have a conversation, and a darkened room suitable for other activities. Right.

            “We’ll get to that,” I told him. “Maybe. But for now, how about doing something where I get to see your eyes?”

            He started to look a little nervous, and his hands retreated into his pockets. I knew what he was thinking; He thought I wanted to be taken to a restaurant – and I knew enough about him to know that money was an issue.

            “I was thinking maybe a picnic,” I told him.

            He was visibly relieved. “Could be fun,” he said, then added, “as long as your brother doesn’t come popping out of the picnic basket.”

            I laughed – a little nervously, because I didn’t put it past Liam to find some way to sabotage it if he knew. Keep in mind, this was right after the Wackworld incident, so I had every reason to fervently believe Liam was the enemy.

            “My brother won’t know about it,” I said.

            And he didn’t. No one did. That Saturday, as far as anyone in my family knew, I was off to meet some friends at the mall; and since I’m such a bad liar, I made sure it was the truth. I did exactly that; I stayed at the mall with friends for a whole twenty minutes and then took off for the head of Mulligan Falls trail. My backpack was full of sandwiches and condiments, and a blanket. Harry was bringing the beverages.

            When I arrived at the trailhead he was already there, pacing back and forth, perhaps worrying that I wouldn’t show. I said hello, giving him a hug. He smelled very Mennen; just the right amount of mildly scented antiperspirant, which, in my book is far more enticing than anyone who reeks of cologne.

            “I had to tell my uncle I’m at Sunday school,” he told me, “so that gives us a few hours.”

            Hearing that surprised me. “Why can’t you just tell him the truth?”

            “Weekends are family time. He prefers me at home.” And that’s all he said on the subject of his uncle.

            We took a look at the trail map. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked. “After all, I _was_ voted Most Likely to Receive the Death Penalty.”

            “Oh… you heard about that?” I felt a bit embarrassed to be part of a student body that would behave so hurtfully. It never made it into the yearbook, but everyone knew about it.

            “Actually,” I told him, “I feel safer with you than with most other boys at school.”

“Thanks… I think.”

            We took the trail up and out of our community. Housing developments disappeared behind towering trees, and in just a few minutes it felt like we were hours from civilization. It had been an exceptionally wet winter, and the falls were so powerful with the spring thaw, we could already hear the roar even though we were still a half a mile away.

            “So, tell me something I don’t know about you,” I asked as we walked. I tried to make eye contact with him, but the question made him self-conscious, and he looked away.

            “What kind of thing?”

            “Anything,” I said. “That you have webbed feet or a vestigial tail. That you’re color blind, or a sleepwalker, or an alien lulling humanity into a false sense of security.”

            I thought he’d laugh, but instead he just said, “I’m none of those things. Sorry.” He helped me over a jagged boulder, thought for a moment, then said, “I’ve got a photographic memory, though.”

            “Really!” It was much more interesting than any of the things I had suggested, except maybe for the alien – but all things considered, I much preferred that he be terrestrial anyway. “So if you’ve got a photographic memory, by now you must know the poems in that Allen Ginsberg book by heart.” I was just kidding, but a moment later he launched into “Howl,” reciting it word for word. And this is no short piece – it’s one of those poems that goes on forever. I was impressed, but also unsettled, because, like he said, he liked angry poetry, and “Howl” is a regular fury-fest. Rage against the establishment and all that. As he spat out the words, they became more and more caustic, like a volcanic blast. I imagined I could see superheated steam venting into the air around him as he spoke.

            Then when he got to the part about drinking turpentine in Paradise Alley, he forced himself to stop. He was out of breath, like he had just run a sprint. I could tell he was still marginally volcanic inside, but he quelled it quickly.

            At that point any other person would have said, “Thank you, it’s been interesting,” then shot up a rescue flare. But I’m not any other person. “Very impressive,” I said, then added, “ _Howlingly_ so.”

            “Sorry I got a little carried away.” He took a deep breath and released it. “Sometimes I feel things very deeply, y’know?”

            “How deeply?” I asked.

            “Bottomless, kinda.”

            And I believed it, too. There was something about his sheer intensity, and the way he could harness it, that captivated me. Controlled danger. A safely chained extreme. Was anger the only emotion he experienced so powerfully, or was it that way with everything.

            I found myself leaning forward to kiss him. Why, you may ask? Well, don’t ask, because I don’t have an answer – I just couldn’t stop myself. It was just a peck, really, and I moved so quickly that our teeth bumped. Not exactly romantic in the traditional sense of the word, but I don’t think traditional was in either of our vocabularies.

            H was stunned for a moment, then said something he probably hadn’t meant to say out loud. “You’re a very strange boy.”

            “Thank you,” I said. “I try.”

            I turned to continue down the path, but I’ll admit I was partially stunned myself, because I didn’t look where I was going. My foot slipped on a boulder, got wedged in a crevice, and I went down. I felt a sharp, searing pain in my ankle even before I hit the ground, and I yelped. My blanket-stuffed backpack kept the rest of me from getting hurt, but the rest of me didn’t matter if my ankle was out of commission.

            “Are you okay?” Harry hurried over to me as I freed my foot with a pained yowl that made a flock of birds take flight.

            “No!” I shouted, my frustration overtaking the pain. “I’m not okay!” It wasn’t just that the day would be ruined; there was a huge swimming tournament coming up, and ankle troubles are just as bad for a swimmer as they are for any other athlete. “This can’t happen now! I can’t have a sprained ankle!”

            “Let me see.” Harry knelt down. By now the sharpness of the pain had subsided – it didn’t burn when I didn’t move – but I could feel heat and pressure around my ankle. It was already beginning to swell, and Harry said, “I’ll bet it’s not sprained; you probably just twisted it.”

            “Don’t touch it!”

            “I’ll be careful.” He gingerly took off my shoe and then my sock. I held on to the hope that he was right and that it wasn’t as bad as it felt. He held my foot and rotated it to the left.

            “Ouch!”

            “Sorry.”

           Then he rotated it more gently to the right. “Better?”

            “A little.”

            “I know some acupressure points,” he said as he massaged my foot and ankle. “How does that feel?”

            “I don’t know,” I said. But that was a lie. It felt good. Better than good. I watched as his fingers moved confidently across the bruising skin, caressing the bone beneath and stroking the tendons. A strange and powerful feeling of well-being radiated from my foot out to the rest of me.

            “It’s called reflexology,” he said. “Some people believe the feet are the mirrors of the soul.”

            I nodded. At that moment he could have said the earth was made of chocolate pudding and I would have believed it. I could swear I felt his heartbeat in the tips of his fingers, but maybe it was mine – and I realized that this was well beyond anything that should be attempted on a second date.

            Harry rotated my ankle again.

            “How’s that?”

            “Better.” It tingled, it felt a little bit numb, but it didn’t hurt. It was more like the feeling you get when you hit your funny bone. In a moment the sensation began to go away.

            Then he let go. “Like I said, you just twisted it. You’ll be fine.”

            I stood up and put some weight on it. He was right. I’d been lucky.

            “But just in case,” he said as he stood up, “maybe we should have our picnic here instead of hiking anymore.”

            “But… but what about the falls? And we haven’t even gotten up to the good views.”

            “It’s okay,” he said, and offered a little grimace. “To be honest, I’ve outgrown these shoes – and they’re not exactly hiking shoes anyway. They really hurt.”

            He took a couple of limping, grimacing steps, and I grinned. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” I said. “You’re just trying to make me feel better about not making it to the falls.”

            He shook his head. “No, I’m serious.”

            He limped and grimaced a little bit more. I could see that he was sticking to his story, so I decided not to argue. I took the blanket and spread it out in a clearing, and we had our picnic.

            We talked as we ate and drank, and had a truly wonderful time. It felt good, and I didn’t want it to end. I’m not going to be so stupidly sentimental as to say we were suddenly in love or anything, but something did happen that day. Somehow we had become linked. Entwined. It was out of the ordinary, and out of my control.

            That’s when I realized that I had been wrong from the start: Harry wasn’t a stray at all. If anyone was lost, it was me; and I could feel nothing but gratitude at having been found.  


	16. Keelhauled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, an update!!!

**_ Louis _ **

**__ **

            It took a day for that strange feeling to fade, although it never wore off entirely. Eventually I was able to hurl enough reason at it to camouflage it against a background of protective logic. It was hormones. It was adrenaline. It was the endorphins released by the acupressure. There was nothing out of the ordinary going on at all, and I was entirely in control of the situation. Right.

            The following Sunday I invited Harry to join me swimming, and things took a troubling turn.

            On weekends our school opens the pool to the public. It’s an outdoor pool, even though we live in a geographically iffy part of the country when it comes to weather. Why? Because some uber-genius decided it was cheaper to heat an outdoor pool through the winter than to put a building around it. In early April few people come to the pool on Sundays, except the diehards. That was fine. I figured it would give Harry and me some space. The rumor mill was cheerfully rolling out reams about us; and I, for one, didn’t want to feed it more pulp by making a grand and glorious public showing among the masses. Knowing that Harry’s dictatorial uncle worked a night-shift kind of life, I planned it for morning, when he’d be asleep.

            “I watch my brother on Sundays,” Harry told me when I suggested it. I told him to bring his brother along.

            “I don’t have a bathing suit that fits,” he said. I told him shorts were fine.

            “What if it rains?” he asked. I told him he didn’t have to come if he didn’t want to.

            “No… no, I want to come.” And there was genuine enthusiasm in his voice when he said it. I was relieved, because the way he was trying to worm out of coming made me worried that he had changed his mind about going out with me. Maybe the ankle massage had been one step too close for him. Maybe now he saw me as the flytrap ready to spring closed around him. But he _did_ want to come, and he meant it.

            I had just finished swimming my laps when they arrived. Now, the only other person in the pool was one of the regulars – and old lady I call the Water Lily due to her flowery bathing suit and the way that when you look at her, she never seems to be moving forward, like she had somehow taken root in the pool tiles and all that dog paddling was for naught.

            Harry was still favoring one foot as he walked, a whole week after the hike, and I remember thinking how one day in bad shoes can ruin you for a week.

            I swam to the edge of the pool to greet Harry and his brother and peeled off my swim cap, because it’s not humanly possible to look good in a swim cap.

            “This is Niall,” Harry said. “Niall, this is Louis.” I reached out of the pool to shake the boy’s hand. He looked up at the snarling dinosaur painted on the wall behind the pool – our school mascot – and read the team name beneath it. “Are you a raptor?” he asked.

            “No,” I told him. “I’m a Louis-saurus.”

            He laughed at that. Then he removed several layers of mismatched clothes until he was down to his bathing suit and leaped wildly into the pool without even checking the water – which was cold, even by competitive swimming standards.

            Harry shivered with a sympathetic chill when his brother hit the water.

            “Did you see me?” Niall asked excitedly when he resurfaced. “Was that a cannonball?” And although it was more like a leap from the _Titanic,_ I said, “Wow, you made quite a splash,” which told him precisely what he needed to hear without lying to him. Then I turned to Harry, who still stood there with his hands in his pockets.

            “Come on in; it’s not that cold once you get used to it.”

            Niall, who had migrated down to the shallow end, called out to us. “Hey, watch me do a handstand!” He disappeared beneath the surface, produced some whitewater, then stood up again, arms spread in “ta-DA” position, seeking universal approval. “How was that?”

            “Try it again,” I told him. “It’s easier if you keep your feet together.”

            While Niall occupied himself with underwater handstands, Harry strolled along the edge of the pool toward the shallow end, and I kept pace with him in the water.

            “Are you coming in?” I asked.

            “Maybe later,” he said. “I just ate.”

            “Come on; it’s not like you’ll be swimming in a riptide,” I told him. “If you get a cramp, I promise I’ll save you.”

            Reluctantly he went to the steps, took off his shoes and socks, then waded gingerly into the shallowest part of the pool. The water didn’t even come up to his waist. He wore a long-sleeved shirt, and it was already soaking up water at his waist and wrists.

            “Aren’t you going to take off your shirt?” I asked. Even before he responded, a spasmodic brain cell sparked out something Liam had said: _“Have you ever seen him with his shirt off?”_ I mentally pinched the brain cell like a gnat and extinguished Liam’s unwanted intrusion.

            “Is it okay if I keep it on?” Harry said.

            “Sure,” I told him. “Did you know that in the old days, men’s bathing suits included shirts?”

            “I’ve heard that.”

            “And if a man took it off in a public place, he was thrown in jail.”

            “Really?”

            “No, but I wouldn’t put it past people in those days. The Victorian era was very uptight.”

            Apparently I didn’t snuff out Liam’s question fast enough, because it had acted like a pilot light, igniting my own curiosity. Why didn’t Harry want to take off his shirt? It’s not unusual for people to be shy about their bodies. They might their flesh tone is a little pasty or their love handles are, shall we say, a little too “Michelin” in nature. I knew one boy who had a scar down the center of his chest from open-heart surgery as a baby. He hated taking off his shirt. Could it be something like that? Well, whatever Harry’s reason, I would deny my curiosity and respect his modesty. Truth be told, I found it charming.

            “Did you see that handstand?” called Niall; and since I had actually seen feet flipping heavenward out of the corner of my eye, I said, “Much better. Keep practicing.”

            The water lily lady climbed out of the pool and smiled at me as she left, probably thinking _Ah! Young love,_ as old people do. Now it was just the three of us in the pool.

            Harry was leaning back against the pool edge, content just to stand there. I reached toward him, and he reluctantly came away from the wall. “It’s best if you dunk all at once,” I suggested. “Get the shock over with; otherwise you never get used to the water.”

            “I’m fine this way.”

            Now that he stood in slightly deeper water, the edge of his shirt grazed the surface, becoming darker as it soaked in pool water. “I’ll race you to the far end,” I suggested.

            “No,” he said. “I’m not very fast.”

            “So I’ll just use my arms; I won’t kick.”

            “No,” he said, “I really don’t want to.”

            I pulled him toward deeper water. “C’mon, it’s only twenty-five yards.”

            “No!” he pulled his hand back from mine.

            I looked at him, feeling like I had been slapped in the face, but then I realized I was the one who had pushed it. Then before either of us could say anything, Niall chimed in.

            “Harry can’t swim, but I can! One, two, three – GO!” And he took off toward the far end of the pool.

            I looked at Harry, and he turned away. I could feel his humiliation like ripples in the water. “You really can’t swim?”

            He shook his head.

            “Well, that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

            “Let’s just drop it, okay?”

            And suddenly I had an idea.

            “I’ll teach you to swim!” I said. Yes! It was absolutely perfect – and not just the answer to getting out of this awkward moment but also the ideal bonding thing that becomes a musical montage in the movie version of our lives.

            But before I could figure out where to start our first lesson, Harry said, “I’ll be waiting in the stands.” Then he turned to wade out of the pool.

            “But it will be fun! I promise!” He didn’t stop, so I reached for him and grabbed him, maybe a little too forcefully, because his feet slipped out from under him and he went down to his knees.

            “Oops…”

            We were still in water that was shallow enough so that it wasn’t a problem, and he stood back up right away. But now his shirt had ridden up to his chest; and as he pulled it down, I got a brief glimpse of his body beneath the shirt. There was no taking back that glimpse. We both knew it.

            “Did I win?” Niall shouted from the deep end. This time I didn’t even answer him. I gave all my attention to Harry.

            “This was a bad idea,” he said. “We should go.”

            I reached for him again – this time more gently – and I took his hand, holding it in a way that I never had before. The same way he had held my ankle the other day. Gently. Like it was something precious and fragile, even though his hand was so large compared to mine. “Don’t go.”

            I could tell he just wanted to bolt. If he did, I wouldn’t stop him. I had already pushed and pulled him in directions he didn’t want to go. If he decided to leave, I resolved to let him. But he didn’t.

            I looked at his hand: His knuckles had scabs, but they were softened by the water. I gently reached over and touched his shirt.

            “Don’t…”

            “Please,” I said. “Let me see.”

            “You don’t want to see.”

            “Do you trust me?” I asked.

            In his eyes, I could see the battle going on inside him. The desire to hide a terrible secret fighting with the desire to set it free.

            He turned his back to me, and I thought he would leave then. But instead he stood, feet firm on the bottom of the pool, and said over his shoulder, “Okay. You can look if you want.”

            I began to lift up his shirt over his back, slowly, deliberately, like the rising of a curtain; and the scene it revealed was almost too much to bear.

            His back was a battlefield.

            Discolored flesh over old scars. I remembered stories about how they used to punish sailors by dragging them under a ship from one side to another across the rough, barnacle-encrusted hull. Keelhauling, they called it. Harry looked like he had been keelhauled. Not once, but over and over. It wasn’t just his back, either, because the marks extended around to his stomach and chest; and after I had pulled his shirt over his head and free from his arms, I could see a few marks on his arms as well. Although I couldn’t see his legs underwater, I imagined they hadn’t escaped the devastation either. I hadn’t noticed it when he stepped into the pool; but then, I hadn’t been looking.

            I rarely feel true hatred toward anyone, but right then I despised the author of those wounds, glaringly written across his body like blunt hieroglyphics.

            “Who did this to you?”

            “No one,” he said. Why did I know he would say that?

            “You need to tell someone. The police, social services – anybody! Is it your uncle?”

            “No! I told you it was nobody!”

            “If you won’t go to the police, I will!”

            He turned to me, furious. “You said to trust you!”

            “But you’re lying to me! I have to trust you, too, and you’re lying, because things like this just don’t appear out of nowhere!”

            “How do you know they don’t?”

            I took a deep breath and clenched my teeth. I didn’t want any of the anger I was feeling directed at him. “If your uncle beats you, it will never stop if you don’t do something about it.”

            Rather than answer me, he turned to Niall, who was now standing just a few yards away, chest-deep in the water.

            “Niall, does Uncle Hoyt beat me?”

            Niall seemed scared. He looked to Harry, then to me, then back to Harry again.

            “It’s okay,” Harry said to him. “Tell Louis the truth.”

            Niall turned to me and shook his head. “No, Uncle Hoyt’s afraid of Harry.”

            “Has he ever hit me, even once?” Harry asked his brother.

            Niall shook his head again. “No. Never.”

            Harry turned to me. “There. You see?”

            Although I still didn’t entirely believe it, there was an honesty in Harry’s eyes. So I had to look for another explanation. The only other logical explanation was something I didn’t want to consider, but I had to. And I had to ask.

            “Then… do you do it to yourself?”

            “No,” he answered. “It’s not that either.”

            I was relieved, but I still knew no more than before. “What then?”

            He glanced at his brother, then around the pool, as if there might be someone nearby who’d hear what he was about to say. But we were all alone.

            Finally he took a long look at me and shrugged, like it was nothing.

            “It’s a condition,” he said. “That’s all – just a condition. I bruise easily, and I’ve got thin skin. I always have. Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s all it is. A condition.”

            I waited for more, but that’s all he offered. I do know that people with low levels of iron in their blood tend to bruise easily, but it just didn’t ring true. “You mean… like anemia?”

            He nodded. I could sense immense sorrow in that nod. “Something like that.”   

 


	17. Conundrum

**_ Louis _ **

**__ **

            Things were more strained than usual at dinner that night, but it could just have been that my senses were on high alert. Things around me had become confusing; I didn’t know if I could trust my own perceptions anymore, and my thoughts were preoccupied with Harry.

            My parents, who used to be so much more observant, had absolutely no clue that anything was troubling me. Their own personal universes had developed a shell so thick, I don’t think anything was getting through from the outside.

            “Are you done, Louis?” Mom asked, reaching for my dinner plate, not even noticing that I hadn’t eaten a single thing. Carbs, protein, fiber – it all just sat there, as appetizing as plastic to me.

            “I’m done,” I told her. She took away my plate and scraped my dinner into the disposal. I guess if I wasn’t so focused on Harry, I might have realized how “off” things were, how our whole family was on the verge of a landslide. Right then I wasn’t seeing anything, though.

            But Liam was. He was the one who noticed that Mom and Dad didn’t say a word to each other all evening – how Dad just ate in silence. Liam even noticed my lack of appetite.

            “Starvation diet?” he asked.

            “Maybe I’m just not hungry,” I said. “Did you think of that?”

            “I guess it’s contagious.” He said. Only then did I realize he hadn’t eaten much either. In fact, all he had eaten were his vegetables.

            “Since when are you a vegetarian?” I asked.

            “He looked at me, taking great offense. “Just because I don’t feel like eating meat lately doesn’t make me a vegetarian. I’m not a vegetarian, okay?” Then he stormed away from the table.

           

 

            After dinner I tried to do my homework, but I simply couldn’t focus. I knew why. I had avoided talking to Liam about Harry, but I couldn’t put it off any longer. He was, unfortunately, the only one I could talk to.

            I found him in the family room, watching basketball. He was slouching in the man-eating sofa – the one that, when we were kids, we could sink into and practically disappear. It looked like Liam was still trying to do that; but the older we get, the harder that is.

            “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to call you a vegetarian.”

            “Apology accepted,” he said without looking at me. And when I didn’t leave, he said, “You wanna watch the game?”

            I sat beside him and let the sofa pull me in. We watched the game for a few minutes, and finally said:

            “I saw it.”

            He turned to me, only half interested. “Saw what?”

            “His back,” I told him. “He took off his shirt, and I saw his back. And it’s not just on his back; it’s all over.”

            Liam shifted forward out of the folds of the man-eating sofa and raised the remote, turning off the TV, and gave me his full attention. I was grateful that this was more important to him than the game.

            “So, what do you think?” he asked. “Do you think it’s his uncle?”

            Well, I know what I thought, but Harry swore up and down that it wasn’t true. “I don’t know,” I told my brother. “He’s a conundrum – and there’s still a piece missing from the puzzle.” Whatever that piece was, there was a part of me telling me not to get involved – that it was too much to handle. That you shouldn’t go out on a limb unless you’re absolutely sure the limb can support your weight.

            But a stronger part of me wanted to know everything about Harry Styles and become a part of his story, no matter how harsh that story was.

            Liam opened his mouth to speak again, but I didn’t let him.

            “I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say ‘I told you so,’ then you’re going to look at me with that smug expression you get whenever you’re accidentally right.”

            Then Liam did something he rarely does. He caught me by surprise.

            “No,” he said, “I think you should keep seeing him.”

            I tried to read the expression on his face, but with the TV turned off and only dim lights in the room, I couldn’t. “Are you being sarcastic?” I asked. “Because it’s not funny.”

            “No,” said Liam. “I mean it. If you care about him, then you should keep on seeing him. Do you care about him?”

            I didn’t answer right away. I’ll admit that Harry had started as a project, but he had quickly become more than that. The question wasn’t whether or not I cared about him; the question was, how much? I’m glad Liam didn’t ask _that,_ because then I’d have to ask myself; and I already knew the answer. I cared far more than was safe.

            “Yes,” I told Liam simply. “I do care about him.”

            Liam nodded and, without an ounce of judgment, said, “Good. Because he probably needs you. And I think you’re going to need him, too.”

            I didn’t quite know what he meant by that last part, but I was still processing the fact that Liam felt this was good.

            “I thought you hated him…”

            “I did,” Liam admitted, “but if I wanted to keep hating him, I needed a good reason; and I couldn’t find one.”

            This was not the Liam I knew. It’s amazing how people can surprise you. Even brothers. “So, now you’re friends?”

            I wouldn’t go _that_ far.” Then Liam lifted his hand and made a fist. I thought he was making a point; but no, he just studied his knuckles with a creepy kind of intensity. “Tell me something, Louis; by any chance did you hurt your foot last week?”

            It threw me because I didn’t expect him to know about that. How does he find out these things? “Yes,” I said. “I mean, no. I mean, I thought I sprained my ankle, but I didn’t.”

            “And the Bruiser was with you?”

            “Were you spying on us again?”

            “No, I just had a hunch.”

            “So, then, he told you about it?”

            “Nope.” And then he added with a grin, “Maybe I’m just a mind reader.”

            Now this was more like the Liam I knew. “The only thing supernatural about you, Liam, is your body odor.”

            He laughed at that. It eased the tension, but only a little. Then he got serious again. “Just promise me that you’ll stay away from his house and from his uncle… and if things start to get weird, you’ll tell me.”

            “What do you mean by _weird?”_

            “Just promise,” he said.

            “Ofay, fine. I promise.”

            Then Liam leaned back into the man-eating sofa and turned on the TV, signaling the end of the conversation.

            I left feeling more unsettled than before. It was easier to deal with Liam when he was fighting me; but having him on my side was frightening, because now I didn’t know who the enemy was.   


	18. Peripherally

**_ Louis _ **

**__ **

            In horse racing they put these slats on either side of the horse’s head, blocking the creature’s peripheral vision. They’re called blinders. They don’t actually blind the horse, but they allow the horse to see only what’s right in front of it; otherwise it might freak out and lose the race.

            People live with blinders too; but ours are invisible, and much more sophisticated. Most of the time we don’t even know they’re there. Maybe we need them, though, because if we took in everything all at once, we’d lose our minds. Or worse, our souls. We’d see, we’d hear, we’d _feel_ so deeply that we might never resurface.

            So we make decisions and base our lives on those decisions, never realizing we’re only seeing one-tenth of the whole. Then we cling to our narrow conclusions like our lives depend on it.

            Remember how they imprisoned Galileo for insisting the earth revolved around the sun? You can call those people ignorant, but it was more than mere ignorance. They had a lot to lose if they took off their blinders. Can you imagine how terrifying it must be to suddenly realize that everything you believe about the nature of the universe is wrong? Most people don’t realize how terrifying that is until _their_ world is the one being threatened.

            My world always revolved around our nuclear family. Mom, Dad, Liam, and me. It was an atom that might ionize once in a while, erratically spewing electrons here and there; but in spite of that, I always believed it was fundamentally stable. No one expects a nuclear fission within the loving bonds of one’s own family.

            My blinders didn’t allow me to see it coming.

 

 

 


	19. Gastronomy

**_ Louis _ **

**__ **

            I promised Liam I wouldn’t go to Harry’s house, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t invite him to ours.

            It was Friday, and I was already cooking dinner when Mom came home from the university. I had told her and Dad that tonight was the night Harry was coming; but I still couldn’t take the chance that Mom would forget and have to order fast food, or worse, pull out frozen burritos and try to pass them off as homemade. So I skipped Friday’s swim practice and got dinner going myself, thank you very much.

            Sure enough, Mom’s mind was beyond elsewhere when she got home, so I had definitely made the right call. “Harry will be coming at six,” I told her. “Just in time for dinner. Please, _please,_ don’t bring out my baby pictures, or ask him about his philosophy of life the way you did with Max.”

            Mom nodded, then said, “I’m sorry, honey, what was that?” like she was somewhere in deep space, where sound waves couldn’t travel. It drove me crazy that I had to repeat myself, and I still don’t know whether she heard.

            If it weren’t for my blinders, I might have wondered about the bigger picture, but right then and there it was all about me.

            “Please _try_ to make him feel at home. Please try not to scare him away.”

            “Did your father call?” Mom asked with an emptiness in her voice that I misread as exhaustion.

            “I don’t know,” I told her. “I’ve been out buying groceries.”

            Liam arrived a bit later, all sweaty from lacrosse.

            “Shower!” I ordered. “Harry’s coming over for dinner.”

            He looked worried and said to me quietly, “I don’t think this is a good night.”

            “When is it ever?”

            “No,” he said just as quietly. “There’s something wrong. Something going on. I could tell this morning at breakfast’ didn’t you notice the way Mom and Dad were?”

            “No.”

            “It’s like… it’s like someone died and they haven’t told us yet. Anyways whatever it is-”

            “Whatever it is,” I said stridently, “it’s going to have to wait until after dinner. I’ve been planning this for a week, dinner is in the oven, and it’s too late to call it off.”

            He gave no further argument and went off to shower.

            When Dad came home, he opened a bottle of wine, which wasn’t unusual. He’d usually have a glass as he watched the news, and maybe one with dinner if the wine was one that complemented the meal – but never more than that. Tonight, he guzzled the first glass with the wine bottle still in his hand and poured a second. I thought about what Liam had said but decided that whatever was wrong, a hearty, home-cooked meal would soothe it.

            “Dad, save the second glass for dinner,” I told him. “Merlot goes well with what I’m making.”

            “You?”

            “Yes, me. Harry’s coming for dinner, remember?”

            “Oh. Right.”

            Harry arrived just as I finished setting the table. “Am I too early?” he asked.

            “Right on time,” I told him. “You look great.” He was dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt that was a little but small on him; but that was his own personal style, and I’d come to appreciate it. His curly hair was so well-groomed, he was hardly recognizable. I practically wanted to put him up as the centerpiece of the table and present him proudly to my parents; but instead I just made introductions, and they all shook hands.

            Then, when everyone was seated, I brought the platter to the table. “ _Voila,_ ” I said. “ _Bon appetit._ ” And I unveiled my gastronomical masterpiece.

            Liam and Harry just stared at it like it had come from Mars.

            “What is that?” Liam asked.

            “It’s a tri-tip roast,” I said.

            Liam looked like he might become physically ill. “Where’d you get it?” he asked.

            “The store. Where else?”

            “I’ll pass.”

            “What do you mean, you’ll pass? You can’t pass! I was cooking all afternoon!”

           Liam turned to Harry, and Harry grinned. “Still not eating meat?”

            “I’ll eat it when I’m good and ready,” said Liam.

            The fact that the two of them had some secret that I wasn’t aware of really bothered me. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

            “Not while we’re eating,” said Liam, and he loaded his plate with asparagus, announcing that it didn’t make him a vegetarian.

            “It’s a lovely dinner, Louis,” said Mom; but instead of eating, she got up to clean the pots and pans that I had cooked with, refusing to sit down again.

            Dad said nothing about the meal, or about anything else. He served himself and picked at the food on his plate, glaring down with an intensity that was both cold and hot at the same time, like he had a vendetta against the roast and hated each and every vicious spear of asparagus before him.

            The silence around the table was awful and simply had to be broken, but no one was willing to do it but me.

            “It’s not usually like this,” I told Harry. “That is to say, it’s not really this quiet. Usually we have conversations – especially when we have guests. Right?”

            Finally Dad took the hint. “So, exactly how long have you known each other?” he asked, but his tone was strangely bitter.

            “We started going out three weeks ago, if that’s what you mean,” Harry said. “But we’ve known each other since elementary school. Or at least known _of_ each other.”

            Dad shoved a piece of meat into his mouth and spoke with his mouth full. “Glad to hear it,” he said as he cut another piece of meat. “You have my blessing,” he said to me. “ _Vaya con Dios._ ”

            It was the most mad-bizarre thing I’d ever heard my father say. I turned to see Mom’s reaction, but she was still busy washing the pots and pans, keeping her back to the rest of us.

            Finally I lost it. “ _What’s wrong with you?_ ” I shouted to Mom and Dad.

            No answer for a while. Then Dad said, “Nothing’s wrong, Louis. I’m just worried about your mother. She’s putting so much effort into that ‘Monday night class’ she teaches, I’m concerned for her health.” He glared at her back like it was an accusation. Suddenly I realized that it was.

            For a brief moment, I met Harry’s eyes, and there was panic in them. I could see the way he held his utensils tightly in his hands, as if he’d have to use them as weapons at any moment. I turned to Liam, whose hands were out, palms down on the table; he was looking at his plate as if he were silently saying grace. _No, that’s not it,_ I realized. _My brother’s bracing himself. Bracing himself for what?_

And suddenly my blinders fell away, letting the big picture invade my mind in all of its terrible glory.   


	20. Oblivious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm going on a cruise with my family for spring break :) so I I won't have any internet connection. (oh my god, how will I ever survive?!?!) So don't expect any updates this next week, but I'm going to try to post as many chapters as I can today and tomorrow to make up for it!

**_ Louis _ **

**__ **

_Enola Gay_ is the name of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and, three days later, on Nagasaki. It flew so high that when it released a bomb, it took one minute and forty-three seconds for the bomb to reach the ground. Actually, I made that part up; but you know what? I don’t care. I’m sure it’s close.

            I wonder what the crewmen were thinking during that time between the act and the result. Were they regretful? Were they frightened? Exhilarated? Numb? Or were they just thinking about getting home to their families?

            The thing is, once a bomb begins to fall the deed is done. All you can do is watch helplessly, waiting for the blinding flash.

            I never saw it coming, but Liam did. I think he watched for the whole minute forty-three. It must have torn him apart inside to know that Mom and Dad were about to go thermonuclear, and also know that he could do nothing to stop it. All he could do was brace himself. He tried to warn me, but I was too oblivious to duck and cover.

            Maybe I was the lucky one, because by the time I saw it, the bomb was about to strike the hardpan earth, so I never knew what hit me. And Harry? Well, he was the innocent bystander caught in precisely the wrong place at precisely the wrong time.

 

 

 


	21. Detonation

**_ Louis _ **

**__ **

            “How about it, Lisa?” Dad taunted from his place at the table. “Care to share the gist of your Monday night class? Or is it not suitable for children?”

            Mom slammed down one of the pots in the sink. “Stop it, Daniel,” she said. “Now is not the time.”

            “Of course it’s not,” Dad said. “But why should that ever make a difference?”

            And then Dad turned to the three of us – me, Harry, and Liam – like we were a tribunal of Supreme Court justices. “Let me tell you about life,” he said. “Life is all about revenge. Getting back at the other guy at all costs; isn’t that right, Lisa? Why don’t you tell everyone about your ‘class’?”

            “I’m not talking about this!” But she turned to face him, proving that yes, she _was_ talking about this.

            “Say it, Lisa. I need to hear you say it. I need to hear it from you.”

            “Dad!” shouted Liam. “Stop it! Leave her alone!”

            But Dad put up his hand with such authority, Liam backed down. He’s the only person Liam will back down from.

            Dad looked at Mom for a moment more, both with matching gazes of accusation and rage… and then it was over. Dad crumbled. He buried his head in his hands and burst into tears that went on and on with no sign of stopping.

            I turned to my mother, desperately hoping she could say something to fix this. “Mom?” I said. “What’s going on? What’s Dad talking about?”

            Her shoulders went slack; and before her own emotions could choke out her voice, she said, “There _is_ no Monday class, Louis.”

            That’s when Harry bolted. He stood up so quickly that he nearly knocked over the dinner table and made a beeline for the door – and since it was easier to go after him than it was to stand there and face my crumbling, dissolving parents, I followed him.

            “Harry! Wait!”

            He didn’t turn back to me until he was safely across the threshold of our front door. “I shouldn’t even be here,” he said. “My uncle’s at work, my brother’s home alone-”

            “I’ll come with you…” I reached for him, but he pushed my arms away.

            “I can’t _do_ this!” He was furious. He was terrified. “You don’t understand! I can’t care about them, I can’t care about _you_!”

            “What?”

            He backed away, but he held me in his horrible, deep, draining eyes. “That’s right. I don’t care about you. It’s over. I don’t care about you at all.” Then he turned and took off like a thief, disappearing down the street and into the windy night.

 

 


	22. Reflexively

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry that I've taken this long to update, but I was super unmotivated to write after I got back from vacation. So I just wanna thank nialler for leaving that comment and making me realize how long it had been since I had actually updated, so thank you! Also, I am still looking for a beta, if anyone's interested!

**_ Louis _ **

**__ **

            There would be no looking back on this and laughing. That’s what people always say, isn’t it? “Someday you’ll look back on this and laugh.” Easy for them to say. I hope they choke on their own advice.

            Standing at the open door was like standing at the edge of the earth. I felt myself leaning forward into the April wind, wishing I could just jump – or better yet, just slip out of my body and drift away, leaving all the pain of the evening far behind.

            The thing was, if I had found a way to escape – even for a little while – I knew the pain would be there waiting for me when I got back.

            But for now I was shell-shocked. It wasn’t quite escape, but it would have to do.

            “Fine,” I said to the stupid, soulless wind, and went inside.

            No one was in the kitchen when I returned, and I happily entertained the fantasy that Mom and Dad had been instantly vaporized by their own middle-aged angst and had taken Liam along with them. An evil thought, I know, but I was feeling evil down to the core right then – and perfectly entitled to the feeling.

            I could hear the TV in the family room. Probably Liam. And I heard movement upstairs – Mom or Dad, but not both, because by now they would have retreated to their separate corners of the ring, probably finding the two farthest points in the house to lick their wounds.

            And there in front of me were the ruins of the evening on our best china. The waste products of a dinner gone wrong.

            I found myself cleaning up, because it was easier to do something simple like clearing the table than to analyze which level of hell I now resided in.

            I wasn’t being as attentive as I should have been, however, because as I reached to grab the serving platter, my thumb sliced across the sharp edge of the carving knife. I reflexively drew back my hand, but it was too late; there was a half-inch gash on my palm, near the base of my left thumb, and it was already oozing blood.

            “Crap!”

            I grabbed it with my other hand and tried to stem the flow of blood, but it didn’t help. Blood dribbled in little vermillion drops all over the forsaken roast, blending in with the drippings.

            And that’s when I started to cry.

            Of all the stupid things. Never mind that my boyfriend just abandoned me and my family just auto-destructed – there I was, crying about that stupid, freaking roast.

            “Louis?” Liam stood in the doorway watching me bleed onto dinner. “What happened?”

            I grabbed a cloth napkin from an untouched table setting, pressed it to my bleeding hand, and to my own embarrassment found myself whimpering like a child. “It’s all ruined, Liam,” I said. “Everything.”

            “C’mon,” he said; and he grabbed my elbow, pulling me toward the bathroom.

            He searched for Band-Aids in the medicine chest while I washed the wound, watching the pink water flow down the drain.

            “Apply pressure,” he said.

            “I know how to stop bleeding!” I snapped. “I took lifesaving, for God’s sake!”

            “Okay, okay, I’m just trying to help.”

            I cleaned it with peroxide, and he held out a Band-Aid. “At least let me help you put this on,” Liam said. “You can’t do it with one hand.”

            So I held out my hand and let him stretch the bandage across the wound, smoothing out the adhesive strip.

            “There,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches.”

            I took a deep breath. “Thank you, Liam.”

            “No problem.”

            As much as we fought, I couldn’t deny that at times like this, there’s a closeness between us that I’ve always been grateful for.

            We didn’t leave the bathroom. Instead, he closed the door and sat on the toilet lid while I stretched out in the dry bathtub. It wasn’t the most comfortable place for a sibling summit meeting, but there’s something comforting about the tight privacy of a family bathroom. Does that sound weird? I don’t care.

            I told him all about how Harry bailed.

            He told me about the times he’d pick up the phone only to be hung up on – and the times he’d overheard Mom talking to someone, saying things she should be saying to no one but Dad.

            “Mom has a boyfriend,” Liam said.

            So there it was, out in the open. No hints, just the plain, raw fact.

            “It’s because of what Dad did last year, isn’t it?”

            “Maybe,” said Liam. “Maybe not. Maybe it would have happened anyway.”

            Mom and Dad had tried to keep it hidden last year, but Liam and I knew what Dad had done. We had been furious about it, because fathers are not supposed to have girlfriends – even if it’s only for a short time. Even if it’s only one time. They’re not supposed to, but sometimes they do. Fact of life. I don’t know the statistics. Maybe I should look them up.

            So it happened, and Dad had been left with a choice. He could give her up, whoever she was, and then move heaven and earth to make things right with Mom. Or he could end the marriage. He’d chosen Mom – and Liam and I saw how he tried to make it up, not just to Mom, but to all of us. I guess that had been enough for us to forgive him – at least in part. I had thought it was the same with Mom. I never understood the depth of the wound.

            All at once, I found my thoughts ricocheting to Harry. As much as it hurt to think of him, it was easier than thinking about my parents. It was easier to condemn him for what he had done; and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I had reached out to save him from whatever terrible things were going on in his world; but when something went seriously wrong in mine, he didn’t just walk away, he ran.

            “He just washed his hands of us,” I mumbled. “He washed his hands of _me_.”

            “Did you expect him to be a role model of mental stability?” Liam asked. “You don’t get a reputation as the resident creepy dude for nothing.”

            Still, that wasn’t an excuse. There was no excuse for the way he behaved. If I could be sure of nothing else that evening, I could be sure of that.

            “I hate him,” I said, and at the moment I meant it with all my heart. “I hate him.”

            Beyond the bathroom wall, we heard the garage door grind open and a car started. Someone drove away. I didn’t know whether it was Mom or Dad. I didn’t want to find out.

            “So, what happens now?” Liam asked. It surprised me, between the two of us, he was always the one who pretended to have the answer.

            “It’ll get worse before it gets better,” I said.

            “The D word?”

            “The S word first,” I pointed out. I couldn’t imagine our parents separating. Who would move out, Mom or Dad? Who would we live with? Did we get to choose? How could we possibly choose?

            Liam and I didn’t talk anymore, because there was nothing left to say; but we didn’t leave the bathroom either, because this was, at least for the time being, our only place of safety. So we sat there in silence, wishing there was some way to sleep through whatever was to come. Wishing there was someone who could come and magically take away all the pain.

 

 

 


	23. Transference

**_ Louis _ **

**__ **

            It’s strange how we always want other people to feel what we feel. It must be a basic human drive. Misery loves company, right? Or when you see a movie that you love, don’t you want to drag all your friends to see it as well? Because it’s only good the second time if it’s the first time for somebody else – as if their experience somehow resonates inside of you. The power of shared experiences. Maybe it’s a way to remind ourselves that on some level we’re all connected.

            By morning we knew that it was Mom who had left, and she hadn’t come home. Dad made us breakfast: credible pancakes, although the blackened evidence of his first batch was buried in the trash.

            “She’ll be back when you get home,” Dad told us. He seemed way too confident about that, which made me think that he wasn’t confident about it at all.

            As we walked to school, I couldn’t stop thinking about how furious I still was with Harry – how I wanted to make him feel everything I had felt last night: the helplessness of watching my family detonate and the soul-searing feeling of being abandoned in the midst of it, the way he had done to me. I wanted to take everything I was feeling, put it in a cannon, and aim it at him.

           

            I knew I’d see Harry in school that day, and what bothered me most was that I didn’t know what I’d do when I saw him. It was terrifying not to have a perfect and clear-cut course of action. I knew exactly when I would see him, too. His locker was just outside of my second-period class. Usually we looked forward to seeing each other then, even if it was just to say hello. Now I dreaded it.

            I suppose he could’ve made a point of avoiding his locker, but he didn’t. And I suppose I could have slipped in through the classroom’s back door, but I didn’t do that either – because as much as I was dreading it, I knew it had to happen.

            He was standing right there as I approached the classroom. He didn’t look at me. He just stared into his locker, moving around books.

            “Harry?”

            He turned to me and I found my arm swinging even before I was conscious of the motion. I guess swimming made me stronger than I realized, because I slapped him so hard, his head snapped to the side, hitting his locker, which rang out like a bell. It was all I could do to keep myself from pounding on his chest. All of that fury I was feeling needed a way out.

            Around us, other kids saw what was going on. Some gave us a wide berth, others laughed, and that only made me angrier. And then Harry said:

            “Is that it? Because I have to get to class.”

            “No!” I shouted, “that’s not it!” and I pushed him. I realized I was doing the bully thing that my brother was famous for, but at that moment I didn’t care. The push didn’t do much anyway – Harry had so much inertia, he didn’t even move when I pushed him. Instead, I ended up stumbling backward.

            “There are things you don’t know,” he said.

            “You think you can hide behind that?” I shouted. “That’s no excuse! What you did last night… what you _said_ –”

            “I lied”

            That caught me off guard and I hesitated, trying to figure out just what he had lied about. He’d said he didn’t care about me, or about any of us. Was he lying about that? Did he care after all? Did I want him to?

            The tardy bell rang. We were alone in the hallway now. I was about to turn and storm into class when I felt something warm and wet on my hand. It was blood.

            “Oh no!” It didn’t take a genius to figure out I had opened the gash on my hand again. The Band-Aid, which was already loose, was now too wet to hold its grip. It slipped off; and when I brushed away the blood, I had trouble relocating the exact spot of the wound. As it turns out, the blood wasn’t coming from my cut at all.

            “It’s not you; it’s me.” Harry said, which is one of the lines guys use when they break up with you; but that wasn’t the case here. It _was_ him. He was the one bleeding.

            He pursed his lips. “Not good,” he said. “Not good at all.”

            My anger didn’t exactly go away at that instant, but it did hop into the backseat. “I must have cut you with my watch,” I said, although I couldn’t imagine anything sharp enough on my watch to draw that much blood. “We’ve got to get you to the nurse.”

            As Harry pressed on the wound to staunch the bleeding at the base of his thumb, I reached into my backpack and found a little pocket-pack of tissues. I pressed the whole pack to his hand and hurried him down the hall.

            “I can do it myself,” he said.

            “I don’t care,” I told him.

            We pushed through the door of the nurse’s office, where some boy I didn’t know looked up at me with feverish eyes and a God-help-me expression, like he thought he might die at any moment.

            “Get in line,” he said.

            “I don’t think so.” I shoved past him toward the nurse. By now the whole tissue pack on Harry’s hand was soaked through with blood, and the moment the nurse saw it, she went into triage mode. She quickly assessed the damage and began to clean the gash with gauze and antiseptic.

            “What happened?”

            “I got cut on my locker door,” Harry said.

            _Is that what happened?_ I thought. _But he wasn’t even touching his locker._

“It looks worse than it is,” the nurse said once the wound had been cleaned. “You probably won’t even need stitches.” She talked about tetanus shots and gave him a thick piece of gauze. “Keep pressure on it.” Then she turned to me and my bloody fingers. “And you need to clean yourself up. There’s a sink over there. Wash all the way to your elbows. Do it twice.” She told Harry she’d be back to dress the wound, then went to deal with the plague-ridden boy by the door.

            I went to the sink, crisis resolved, except, of course, for one minor thing:

            The wound was gone from my hand.

            It hadn’t healed – it was gone, like it had never been there at all. I kept washing my hands, certain I had just missed it and that it would reappear once I washed away the lather, but no. The cut was nowhere to be found.

            I could feel something tugging on the edge of my awareness. Something both frightening and wonderful. I was at the barrier of some unknown place. Even as I stood there I could feel myself crossing over that line.

            When I turned to Harry, he was watching me.

            “You didn’t cut yourself on a locker, did you?” I asked.

            He shook his head. I sat beside him, not quite ready to believe what had happened.

            “Let me see it.”

            He raised the gauze. The wound had clotted; the blood had stopped flowing. I could see the wound clearly now. It was my wound. Same size, same place. Only now was it on _his_ hand.

            “Do you understand now?” he asked gently.

            But how could I understand? This wasn’t an answer, it was a question – and one I didn’t even know how to ask. All I could say was “How?”

            “I don’t know,” he said. “It just happens.”

            “Always? With everyone?”

            “No,” he said. “Not everyone.” The wound had begun to ooze again, so he pressed the gauze to it. “But if I care about someone…”

            He didn’t have to finish the thought, because it was there in his eyes. The reason why he ran – why he lied. People thought Harry Styles was a dark unknown, a black hole best kept away from him. Well, maybe he was, but what people didn’t realize is that black holes generate an amazing amount of light. The problem is, their gravity is so great, the light can’t escape – it just gets pulled in along with everything else.

            If he took away the sprains, cuts, and bruises of everyone he cared about, no wonder he’d rather be alone. How could I blame him for running last night as he tried to escape from his own gravity?

            I could feel my anger and turmoil draining away now that I had at least a part of the puzzle. The brooding expression on Harry’s face was inscrutable, so it was impossible to know what he was feeling; but I knew what _I_ was feeling. It flowed in to fill the void once my anger was gone. As unexpected as the slap, I found myself kissing him; and although I heard the nurse protesting from across the room, her voice sounded miles away. I was caught in a gravity far greater than hers.

            “I love you, Harry.”

            “No you don’t,” he said.

            “Just shut up and take it,” I told him.

            He smiled. “Okay.”

            He didn’t have to tell me that he felt the same, because I already knew. The evidence was there on the palm of his hand.

 

 

 


	24. Injurious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I feel terrible for not writing anything for so long. Writers block absolutely suck, and I felt so uncreative. Anyway, I've taken my AP Lang exam so now I have nothing to distract me from this! I hope to update much more frequently now!!! Also, I am so excited to finally be writing a chapter from Harry's POV, and I feel that the way Harry thinks in this story is kind of poetic, so I wrote it in this format for that reason.

 

**_ Harry _ **

 

I saw the weak hearts of my classmates shredded by conformity, bloated and numb, as they iced the wounds of acceptance in the primordial gym, hoping to heal themselves into popularity,

Who have devolved into Play-Doh pumped through a sleazy suburban press, stamped in identical molds, all bearing chunks of bleak ice, comet-cold in their chests,

Who look down their surgically set noses at me, the boy most likely to die by lethal injection with no crime beyond the refusal to permit their swollen, shredded cardiac chill to fill my heart as well,

Yet out of this frigid pool of judgment stepped Louis, untainted by the cold, radiating warmth in a rhythmic pulse through his veins, echoing now in mine, just as the slice across his palm is now my burden, taken by accident, yet held with purposeful triumph,

As I now reach to double-check the unreliable lock on my bathroom door, which gives no privacy, least of all from Uncle Hoyt, who, in fits of paranoia, must know everything, everything that goes on beneath his termite-ridden, shingle-shedding roof,

Where I now carefully peel the bandage from my hand, revealing shades of brown and red, flesh damaged and bruised, hoping to redress the wound before my uncle can find out, the wound that I have no idea how Louis got, for in my fuzz-brained love haze, I forgot to question,

Which will heal without mystery or magic at the normal pace of life – in a week, two weeks, three – like the raw-knuckle scabs of his brother, now mine, too, like the bruises, breaks, and scrapes, the scars of a lifelong battle that defines me,

Like the fresh wound that cannot be concealed as my uncle swings open the maliciously disloyal bathroom door, and getting a healthy look at the fresh red line sliced across the heel of my hand, knowing from my unmet gaze that I’m holding a secret, which gives him permission to hold me hostage.

_“Get that cut today, did you?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Didja take it from Niall?”_

_“No.”_

_“That boy’d cut his head off with safety scissors.”_

_“I didn’t take it from Niall; it happened at school.”_

My uncle knows about the things I can do – the pain that I take – and knowing makes him still crazier and more protective, but of himself, not of me,

I muffle the screaming wound with a white gauze square; but nervous, tense, I press too hard and wince, a small twitch almost imperceptible, and he’s looking at me with searing intensity, seeing all.

_“Hurt?”_

_“No.”_

_“You’re lying.”_

_“It’s nothing.”_

_“It don’t look like nothing.”_

_“It’ll heal.”_

_“You gonna tell me how you got it?”_

He, with zero trust, zero tolerance, zeroes in on my eyes that once knew only how to betray me but lately have learned the wicked wartime trick of holding secrets in a darker place and coding them to a cipher my uncle isn’t clever enough to crack.

_“I told you it’s nothing. Some girl in the hallway.”_

_“Some girl?”_

_“Coulda been something sharp on her backpack; I don’t know.”_

_“And you’re saying I should believe that?”_

_“I’m saying you should take your dump and let me be.”_

And, as I leave the bathroom, my uncle hurls a warning scowl to remind me that mouthing off will buy me a world of punishment, but not today, because it’s not worth his time, then he closes the door to take the call of nature, leaving me to stride, giddy with relief, down the hall and into the room I share with my brother,

Where Niall plays with plastic army men, and he, the general of a pigsty battlefront, glances at my bandaged hand but asks no questions, sibling smart in his willful ignorance, knowing he can’t know, because eight-year-olds don’t just tell secrets, they sing them on every unwanted wavelength, and since Niall’s mouth betrays him even more often than my eyes betray me, he doesn’t ask, because he knows he can’t sing to our uncle the things I haven’t told him,

So the wound remains secure as I lie on my bed, like a blood oath aching a sweet reminder of the secret I share with Louis, this moment marking the first time I’ve seen my gift as a wonder and not a curse,

For standing between Niall and his pain is my obligation, and standing between my uncle and his pain is my rent, but the pain I coax from Louis is my joy.


	25. Epic

**_ Harry _ **

**__ **

_I will not give in_

_To an interrogation_

_Even from Louis_

On a day in the park where wind-torn clouds sweep a frenetic sky in vivid Van Gough strokes, while Louis and I read Homer on the grass, studying for an epic exam of cyclopean proportions, I will not give in to the interrogation,

As Niall jumps from a tree, oblivious to the strain he puts on my shins, then climbs again recklessly, no thought of consequences, his survival skills a casualty of his painless existence, I will not give in to the interrogation,

While Louis leans into my lap, and I read _The Odyssey_ aloud, feeling his need to know grow stronger the longer I avoid it, until he notices that I’m reciting the book entirely from memory, and he finds the first question to begin the barrage – but just as Odysseus resists the sirens, I will not give in to the interrogation.

_“You memorized_ The Odyssey _?”_

_“So what? Homer did it, and I’m not even blind.”_

_“The whole thing?”_

_“Only the parts I’ve read.”_

_“That’s amazing, Haz.”_

_“It’s just something I do.”_

_“Like the healing?”_

_“It’s not healing; it’s stealing.”_

_“Excuse me?”_

_“The pain doesn’t leave; it just jumps to me.”_

_“How do you explain that?”_

_“I don’t.”_

As the sun hides behind the shearing clouds, the temperature plunges and frustrated mothers race to their children, coats at the ready to battle the schizophrenic day, and Louis ignores the breeze, knowing the sun will strobe on again in a moment; yet if he’s cold he does not care, because he’s begun the inquisition.

And I wonder if his need to know is stronger than my need to remain unexposed.

_“How did it start?_

_Do you choose who you heal?_

_How do you choose?_

_Who do you choose?_

_Does anyone know?_

_How does it work?_

_Do you have to be touching?_

_Why won’t you answer?_

_Aren’t you listening?_

_Harry?”_

Even as I offer Louis nothing but silence, his hand ventures beneath my shirt, roaming my back to make a gentle accounting of my wounds – asking me if it hurts, telling him that it does, just a little – then his hand moves around to my chest, and just as I realize he’s not feeling wounds anymore, he tickles my neck, giggles, and pulls back his hand, and I think how different this is – how I’ve never been teased, at least not like this, not the way a guy teases his boyfriend,

And the raw power of that thought makes me surrender, giving in to the interrogation, willfully spilling forth things I’ve never told a soul.

_“For as long as I can remember I’ve stolen,_

_Ripping all the hurts from the people I love,_

_And from no one else._

_I don’t choose it,_

_I don’t want it,_

_But because they found a place in my heart_

_I steal their pain as soon as I’m near them,_

_And all because I got caught caring._

_But those others,_

_ALL the others,_

_Dripping their disapproval like summer sweat,_

_They’re on the outside,_

_And I will never let them in._

_Let them keep their broken bones,_

_Shed their own blood,_

_I hate them._

_I have to hate them, don’t you see?_

_Because what if I didn’t?_

_What if I suddenly started to care?_

_And their friends became my friends,_

_And every ache and every pain,_

_Every last bit of damage,_

_Drained from them to me,_

_Until I was nothing but fractures and sprains,_

_Cuts and concussions,_

_But as long as I keep them on the right side of resentment,_

_Despising them all,_

_I’m safe.”_

Listening keenly, passing no judgment, Louis takes it all in, then leaning close, he kisses my ear, healing me in a way he will never understand, and he whispers, “But you did choose to care about Liam and me. You let us in, Haz.”

So I nod and whisper back: “Promise you’ll close the door behind you.”  


	26. Enumeration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, two chapters in one day!!! This is just a short quick one that I really just wanted to get out, so here you go! Enjoy!!!

**_ Harry _ **

**__ **

_Here are the ten things_

_I will never tell Louis_

_Or anyone else:_

1.) My father could be one of five men I’ve met,

And after having met them,

I don’t want to know.

 

2.) Niall’s only my half brother, but he doesn’t know it.

I once knew his father, but not his last name,

Or where to find him.

 

3.) Men were constantly falling in love with my mother,

They thought she took away their innermost pain.

But that was actually me.

 

4.) We once joined a cult that eventually changed its name

To The Sentinels of Harry.

I don’t want to talk about it.

 

5.) My mother developed ovarian cancer.

But I couldn’t take it away;

I have no ovaries.

 

6.) She left us with Uncle Hoyt when she first got sick;

She knew if it spread to other organs,

I would get it, too.

 

7.) She called me every day until she died.

I still talk to her once in a while.

When no one’s listening.

 

8.) Someday I want the government to find me,

And pay me millions of dollars

To sit near the president.

 

9.) Someday I want to be on a Wheaties box,

Or at least on the cover

Of TIME magazine.

 

10.) Someday I want to wake up and be normal.

Just for a little while.

Or forever.


	27. Orifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, apparently I suck at updating regularly. But, the last day of school is tomorrow, so expect more from me! :)

**_ Harry _ **

**__ **

With neck hairs standing on end, secret panic tripping in my brain, I cross into the petri dish of despair, the chasm of chaos, the school cafeteria,

Where larval troglodytes of blue and white collar breeds practice the vicious social skills of peacock preening and primate posturing amid the satanic smell of institutional ravioli,

When I reluctantly join the line for food, I avoid all eyes but notice, across the cafeteria, Liam and his girlfriend, Danielle,

Who cling to each other like statically charged particles, and I wonder if Louis might cling to me in the same way, even while under the judgmental glare of the hormonal high school petting zoo, if he didn’t avoid the cafeteria on principle,

When a hairless ape named Ozzy O’Dell forces his way in front of me as if I’m nothing more than a piece of soy-stretched meat lurking in the ravioli and calls me the nickname he would much rather call the special ed kids, if he could get away with it.

_“Hey, Short-bus, make some room.”_

_“No. The end of the line’s back there.”_

_“I don’t think so – we’re in a hurry.”_

_“So am I.”_

_“For what? Freak practice?”_

While he laughs at his own idiotic joke, I think how, in the past, I would just let it go, but meeting Louis has changed me, and I’m boldly standing up for myself in places that used to give me vertigo, so as the lazy-eyed lunch lady hands Ozzy a plate of ravioli, I tell him how shaving his head for swim team was not a good idea, because it emphasizes how small his brain is, the same way his Speedo emphasizes how small other things are,

Which makes his friends laugh at him instead of at me, and Ozzy laughs, too, telling me it’s so funny I deserve to get my ravioli first, because I’ve earned it, then he hands over his plate full of the slithery, sluglike pasta pockets, and I’m confused enough to think that maybe he’s sincere, because I don’t know the rules of the game,

When he rests his finger on the edge of my tray, not forcefully enough for the lazy-eyed lunch lady to notice but enough to shift the balance and flip the whole tray, turning the ravioli into projectile pasta, splattering every available surface, including the expensive fashion statements of several speechless kids,

Who believe Ozzy when he calls me a clumsy waste of life, all eyes turning in my direction as if I’m the one to blame, and I know I’m beaten because as much as I want to expel my fury right in his face, as much as I want to play whack-a-mole on his hairless head, I can’t, and wouldn’t they all laugh from here to the edge of their miserable universe if they knew that the boy most likely to fry was incapable of lifting a finger to hurt anyone, even if the hurt was earned.

With nothing left but humiliation and red sauce, I just want to escape, until Liam arrives out of nowhere, barging his way between us, casting himself as an unlikely avenger, and says,

_“Got a problem, Ozzy?”_

While the lazy-eyed lunch lady, out of touch with anything on the far side of the warming trays, hands a plate of ravioli to Ozzy, which Liam grabs from him and gives to me, asking Ozzy if he plans tp do anything about it because, if he does, he should fill out his complaint form in triplicate and shove them in all three of his bodily orifices,

Which Ozzy has no comeback line for because he’s still trying to figure out which three orifices Liam might be referring to, if he even knows what an orifice is, and even though I don’t want Liam fighting my battles for me, I can’t help but crack a smile, because now I finally understand what it means to have a friend, and maybe it’s worth the pain I’ll endure because of it.


	28. Anabolic

**_ Harry _ **

**__ **

Chest press, shoulder press, lats press, squats;

Liam is all business in the gym

            _“Free weights are the way to go. Machines are for girls.”_

Half an hour in, I’m feeling muscles I never knew I had.

 

Biceps, triceps, deltoids, pecs;

I am Liam’s new project,

            _“You need muscle mass to take on guys like Ozzy”_

Louis might appreciate some muscle mass, too.

 

Crunches, curls, extensions, thrusts;

Liam is the trainer from hell,

            _“You want something easier? Go pick flowers.”_

He tells me it’ll hurt even more tomorrow.

 

Low weight/high reps, high weight/low reps;

I’ll learn to love the burn if I don’t puke first,

            _“You think this is hard? Wait till next time.”_

Liam says he’ll make a bruiser out of me yet, and laughs.

 

Elevate heart rate, hydrate, repeat;

Better living through anabolic exercise,

            _“Great workout,” he says. “And I’m not even sore.”_

Right. Because I’m sore for both of us.

 

 


	29. Surreptious

**_ Harry _ **

**__ **

Lacrosse,

Soccer’s angry cousin,

Football’s neglected stepchild.

No cheerleaders, band, or stands,

Games are played on the practice field

If you want a chair you bring your own,

Louis waves,

He’s saved me a spot,

It’s Raptors versus Bulls,

Dinosaur against beat of burden,

I’ve never seen the game played before.

We turn to the match, which has already begun.

Liam

Is a starting attackman.

He’s very good, but not great,

He’s a fast runner, but not the fastest,

Still, he makes up for it in bullheaded aggression.

 _“He’s always bucking for MVP,”_ Louis says, _“but never gets it.”_

A pass,

He catches it

And moves downfield,

Cradling the ball in the net of his stick,

He shoots for the goal and misses by inches.

Then the Bulls power through the Raptor’s defenses;

I feel Liam’s frustration,

And I know that Louis is right;

He’ll be a team captain, but never the star,

Unless he has something to make him invincible.

I’m breathless

As I watch the game,

Then I suddenly realize why;

Liam _does_ have a secret weapon

That can make him the star of the game.

I wonder what he’ll do when he figures it out!

Stealing

The thunder

Of a stick check

To his right shoulder.

I bear the pain in silence

For fear that Louis might see,

Scraped knee

Hidden by my jeans,

I could leave but choose to stay,

To surreptitiously sustain the blows,

Because if I am now Liam’s project,

It’s my right to make him my project as well.

Final whistle,

A Raptor victory!

Liam scored three goals,

And barely broke a sweat while doing it.

I kiss Louis in the excitement of the moment.

Can he tell that I’m drenched beneath my Windbreaker?

And what if

When I get home,

Uncle Hoyt sees me,

Notices all the fresh bruises,

And knows that I’ve taken things,

From far beyond the bounds of our family?

I shudder

At the thought of him

Knowing about my secret life.

I could tell myself it will be all right,

That he could do no worse than he’s already done,

But there’s a pit in my uncle’s soul,

and I’ve never seen the bottom.

I hope I never do.

 

 

 


End file.
